Compostable vs Recyclable

Originally published May 18, 2017

---

Though this isn’t class related, it did occur in class, and got me thinking. Someone in my tute group had a cuppa, finished it, then went to throw it in the bin. That simple act suddenly gave them reason to pause. The cup was compostable, but did that mean it should go in the recycle bin? Perhaps it could go in both, but would it be better in one or the other?

My thoughts on the matter weren’t all that educated. Sure, I’ve worked at a recycle plant sorting rubbish, but that was building site recycled crap, not house hold recycled crap. To me, rock and metal are nice amethysts and quartz, copper is a rare diamond, wood is a semi-precious stone that must be kept separate from everything, and all plastics (and coffee cups) are the rubble that goes straight in the trash. The junk chute eventually goes to another tip, one that oversees all that household crap. So while my recycling past should lend me some insight, I had no idea.

But despite my lack of any education, I had a few guesses. I thought that while there could be much worst things accidentally thrown in the recycling (actually, that is NOT a guess, the stuff that comes through any recycling will always amaze me, I’m sure house hold crap is the same), maybe there’s a different question we should be asking. Instead of asking whether it could be recycled, we should ask whether it should be recycled. I’ve always believed (based off some evidence I found as a kid), that apple cores are better off for the environment if they’re thrown in the garden via ‘littering’ than put in the general rubbish. The logic made sense; they break down in a garden and supply vital stuff (very scientific) to a garden, compared to wasting all that vital goodness on a wasteland of pollution. What if it is similar in this case. If the cup is going to break down, why bother recycling it? Why not let it be one of the few things in the general rubbish that doesn’t sit there forever, or can we go as far as to litter, letting the compostable status actually be used as compost.

I got to researching (thought very quickly, I was/am tired). According to this site, compostable food items shouldn’t go in the recycle bin because they’ll redirected as trash (the house hold crap equivalent of my rubble). Instead they should be composted, quite literally in a compost bin. This site though says your compostable coffee cups should be taken to a proper compost facility, and won’t do so well in home compost bins… but who has time for that? Though one point arose from this article, throwing biodegradable in the mix. Compost is a specific form of biodegradation (I’m not certain that’s really the word). So, compostable is biodegradable but biodegradable isn’t always compostable. Confusing.

Truthfully, I still don’t know the answer. It will require some extra research for another day, probably after science has actually discovered the answer for itself. In the meantime, here is a good article to read on the whole matter, laid out in a much easier to read fashion than my disconnected sentences.