I was gently reassured that the dinnerware was compostable so I breathed a sigh of relief, opened another plastic bag to collect them in,  before launching into a thought process of how they would get composted. My 20 questions started like this: If they are in a plastic trash bag will they breakdown in the landfill? Do they have to be put out with the yard waste to go to the municipal composting process? Will the yard waste be rejected at curbside if it has “paper” products in it? Does the office building we are in have yard waste pickup? Can the compostable dinnerware go in the cardboard recycling bin - if it has remnants of salad dressing or pizza sauce on it? I was told that the pizza boxes could not be recycled because they had contained food.

At my son’s graduation party in 2005, I ordered compostable dinnerware – plates, napkins, forks, spoons from California that were made from corn grown in Iowa. There was nothing like that at my local grocery store then. The concept of composting the plates and utensils seemed interesting, they were made with locally grown corn  and more green than plastic plates and silverware for our celebration. However, we collected it all in big garbage cans and it went to the landfill with the rest of our trash.  That didn’t seem quite right, but I was hopeful, thinking that since someone had THOUGHT of and CREATED compostable dinnerwear, there must be a way to dispose of it.  Just in case, I had sorted out some of the plates and spoons to put in my garden compost pile to see what happened.  I learned that compostable dinnerware still looks like it did when I put it in the compost bin months later, because my home compost bin does not create the heat needed to breakdown these products. Rats. I’m guessing the stuff we sent in the plastic garbage bags hasn’t changed either – unless the black plastic bags they were in generated enough heat to break them down. And turn them into methane in the landfill.

Fast Forward to 2012.  Has anything changed? Well, there are more compostable products on the shelves, but there is still not a system to compost these products. I am trying these newer compostable products in my vermi-compost bin this time – some intact, some cut into pieces, some filled with banana peels and apple cores.  I will let you know what I find in a few months.

What do you assume happens to your waste? Look up the phone number to your landfill and ask them about compostable dinnerware, food waste and methane. Let me know what you find out.

Kristi Cooper