By Robert Eisenbach, VP Marketing, Green Genius

Last week, Triple Pundit published a post entitled “California’s ‘Truthful Environmental Advertising in Plastics’ Bill Awaiting Action.” In it, author Dinesh Thirupuvanam addresses an issue we at Green Genius believe is a serious problem: confusion and misinformation about the terms “biodegradable” and “compostable.”

Rightly, Thirupuvanam points out that consumers often make assumptions about what those terms mean, and when a company capitalizes on that confusion, allowing consumers to think a product does one green thing when in fact it does another, less-green thing, that’s greenwashing.

Which is why we were surprised and disappointed when the author endorsed California Senate Bill 1454, which we opposed, and referred matter-of-factly to Green Genius as a greenwasher.

First, to the question of greenwashing. As a company, we pride ourselves on our transparency so we take accusations of greenwashing extremely seriously. In fact, one need only spend a few minutes on our websiteto know exactly what our products do, how they biodegrade, what testing methods we use, and who our third-party certifier is.  We also make it very clear in our FAQs that our products are not compostable and should be disposed of in a landfill (like all other trash bags).

Not compostable? Nope. Unlike so many “compostable” plastic products, ours do not make an end-of-life claim that we cannot support. We know that trash bags almost always end up in landfills so we’ve designed them to biodegrade under those conditions.

Meanwhile, corn plastic manufacturers are all too eager to tout their products’ compostability, despite the fact that these products are truly only hot compostable and most consumers do not have access to facilities where such composting is possible. Even when they do, those facilities almost never process corn plastic products in accordance with ASTM D6400, the standard referenced by companies to claim their products are “compostable.”

But back to CA Senate Bill 1454. As Thirupuvanam pointed out, we opposed this bill—that part is true. What’s not accurate is the other argument he makes—that SB 1454 “will eliminate (for Californians at least) today’s confusing distinction that biodegradable and compostable do not mean the same thing.” It will not.

What SB 1454 will actually do is make it illegal for products to claim any form of natural degradability unless they’re compostable per ASTM D6400, even if they do, in fact, biodegrade. Which is great if you’re a maker of corn-based plastic, but horrible for everyone else. It not only eliminates competition for corn-based plastic, but also eliminates products that would reduce the amount of plastic choking up our landfills.

Here’s what else is wrong with the bill:

1. Compostability is not a logical standard to use since hot compost facilities that will actually accept “compostable” plastic remain rare in the state of California (see FindAComposter.com).
2. Even Jepson Prairie, the operator that handles all of San Francisco’s curbside compost, only takes 60 – 90 days to fully process food waste. The compostable plastic standard that the corn plastic companies are using (D6400) allows 180 days. What does Jepson Prairie do to compostable plastic items that don’t biodegrade sufficiently in 90 days or less? They send it to a landfill!

In his post, Thirupuvanam claims that SB 1454 “has the support of the key players in the industry” and he’s right, if he means the corn industry. Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill (by way of its subsidiary NatureWorks) lobbied heavily for this bill. The Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) did too, and why wouldn’t they? BPI was created by the person who developed corn-based plastic for Cargill (he also led the creation of ASTM D6400), and the organization is principally composed of corn-based compostable product manufacturers. (As an aside, if BPI is so concerned about the confusion between biodegradability and compostability, why don’t they change their name?)

Thus, far from actually clarifying the distinction between “biodegradability” and “compostability,” CA SB 1454 would simply let manufacturers of compostable corn plastic run the table, while stifling the development of technologies that can reduce the accumulation of plastic where regrettably most plastic actually goes: a landfill.

And so here’s a final thought on greenwashing. If the average Californian doesn’t have access to hot compost facilities that accept “compostable” plastic, are those products actually compostable? And if those products aren’t compostable in practice, but consumers are buying them because they claim to be, who then is greenwashing?

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The United States is the world’s number one producer of garbage: we consume 30 percent of the planet’s resources and produce 30 percent of all its wastes, but we are just 4 percent of the global population. These are staggering numbers which I personally find incomprehensible. I’m guessing that this is one of the reasons why more people do not get involved in this issue. We have implemented over 5,000 recycling programs throughout the country which are more of a means to helping us feel better about the massive amounts of garbage being created. There is no real global plan for stewarding the earth, which is one reason we created the company ENSO Bottles, to address the plastic bottle pollution on the planet.

Chapter 2 of the book, titled “Rubbish Past” was an eye opener for me.  I was born in the 1960’s; my first encounter of the garbage problem was during the 1980’s when the major concern at that time was the filling up of our landfills.  It was believed that our cities would soon be buried in huge mountains of garbage.  What I didn’t know was that most of the methods for disposing our garbage was unregulated at the time which resulted in massive pollution of the environment.

There is a lot of concern about ocean pollution and there are a number of organizations taking a stand to address this issue.  I’ve heard and read stories about the pacific gyre and what is called the “great pacific garbage patch”, which is a floating island of garbage about the size of Texas located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  I never understood how so much garbage could end up in the oceans until I read that many states such as California and New York practiced ocean dumping of their garbage for many years.  This has no doubt contributed to the ocean pollution problem we face today.

Although some may believe that processing garbage is a relatively new thing, a point I took away from the book is that we have always had a problem with dealing with our garbage.  Even in the late 1800’s there were issues of polluting rivers and city streets with garbage, manure and animal carcasses.  There were major outbreaks of disease in the late 1800’s which resulted in millions of people dying and was a direct result of filth and pollution from garbage.  It is true that those in our past did not have the abundance of commodity products (and associated packaging) available to purchase however, they still dealt with and had to get rid of garbage and waste.  Archeologists have found garbage and waste processing systems from civilizations from hundreds and thousands of years ago.

The United States first sanitary landfill was constructed in 1934 on the outskirts of Fresno, California.  This marked the end to scavenging and the incineration of garbage and is the method practiced in many landfills today.  It is amazing to think that only in the last five years have we developed techniques that will allow us to process our garbage with better environmental outcomes.  Such as collecting the methane gasses which is the result of naturally occurring microbial digestion and using that gas as a source of clean and inexpensive energy.  An energy source that is not only green but is the least costly of the green energy we can produce today (solar, wind, hydro).

So what about recycling?  In the book, the author quotes a study which shows that 87% of garbage can be recycled with only 13% needing to be disposed of.  It is estimated that the energy conserved through recycling is about five times as valuable as the average cost of disposing.  As of 2000, U.S. recycling rates were surprisingly low:  54% for aluminum, 26% for glass, 40% for paper, and 5% for plastics.  Bottle bills have been shown to be a method for improving the recycling rates for plastics.  For example, the state of California claims a recycle rate for plastics of 65%.  This rate sounds really good, which it is, when it comes to beverage bottles only.  It is an example of how bottles bills can improve recycling.  However, this number does not include the hundreds of millions of plastic bottles which are used for non-beverage items such as shampoos, oils, food items, etc.  If we are truly looking at environmental solutions we would require the recycling of ALL materials that can be recycled.

Another interesting fact that I learned from Gone Tomorrow is that the United States has become the world’s largest exporter of garbage.  With the large volume of container ships coming to America to bring us our inexpensive commodities from China, India and other parts of the world where there is inexpensive labor, the ships unload their cargo and returning to their ports empty.  To fill this void, an opportunity was created to ship back our garbage (and recycled materials) very inexpensively.  So now our garbage is becoming someone else’s problem, which I’m only guessing will become our problem again sometime in the future.

One last point that was covered in the final chapter of the book is the misguided thought of creating plastics and packaging from food sources such as corn, soy and hemp.  These plastics are also called bioplastics and are being push today by the large agriculture companies such as Dow and Monsanto.  The author points out the problems with bioplastics; “they are also likely to promote monocropping and increased use of chemical fertilizers to ensure a uniform and reliable feedstock.  This would also wipe out biodiversity and pollute water and soil.  Additionally, increased demand and higher prices for crops to feed the plastics sector could impact the food supply, since those with the strongest purchasing power get the goods.”

Journalist George Monbiot argues: “Those who worry about the scale and intensity of today’s agriculture should consider what farming will look like when it is run by the oil industry.”

I recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn about the history of our garbage problem.

Enjoy,

By Danny Clark

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There have been some in the PLA (corn plastics) industry who use quotes from Dr. Rathje’s book to support an argument that composting biodegradable plastics is better for the environment than landfilling them.  Their argument takes some of the data out on context by looking at the hundred year old “poor” environmental designs of landfills.  The printing of “RUBBISH!” was in 1991 with most data provided in the book ending in 1988.  Most of the data in the book is over 20 years old.  As with many things from our past we eventually discover better and more environmentally sound solutions.  Yes, it is absolutely true that traditional dry-tomb landfilling is not the best solution for dealing with our garbage.  As a society we have made significant improvements to the methods we use for disposing of garbage.  Since the writing of the book we have implemented hundreds of recycling programs as well as the EPA requiring methane from the anaerobic biodegradation process happening in landfills to be captured and burned or used to create clean energy.  The EPA in the last 5 years has also changed laws with recirculating leachate through a landfill so to accelerate biodegradation by up to 10x.

Dr. Rathje does briefly address composting as a solution to some of our organic garbage.  He points out that composting is expensive  and the issues is that most compost becomes tainted with hazardous elements, such as the heavy metals used in inks and pigments as well as yard waste containing traces of pesticides and herbicides.  Another issue with composting biodegradable plastics is that the corn used in fermenting the lactic acid is Genetically Modified corn, because of this, if PLA plastics are composted that compost cannot be labeled “organic”.  For many composting facilities this would severely impact the marketability of the compost material.

What Dr. William Rathje, and those using the book to bash biodegradable plastics neglect to mention is that over the last few years we have made significant improvements to the way we handle our trash.  One of these improvements is called landfill bioreactors, which is not discussed at all in the book.  These types of landfills are designed in the beginning to better control the anaerobic biodegradation process by circulating the leachate back through the garbage.  This not only helps to accelerate anaerobic biodegradation by adding moisture but it has also been discovered to improve the quality of the leachate.  These bioreactors are built with collection systems for collecting not only the leachate but also the methane.  So from the beginning of the bioreactor landfill life the methane is being captured and typically used to create clean inexpensive energy.  In fact, energy from methane captured from landfills is the least expensive form of “green” energy we can create today.  It is less costly than solar, wind, or hydro.  In April 2004, the EPA finalized a rule permitting the transformation of landfills into bioreactors.  Landfill bioreactors produce MUCH more gas than traditional landfills, about 10 times the amount and are at concentrations of up to 50%.  Bioreactors with their advanced LFG collection systems are able to collect more than 90% of the methane gasses.

Another benefit of bioreactor landfills is that the life of the landfill is extended by as much as 25 years.  This means that the same physical space of land that would traditionally have been filled up and capped can now be used for another 25 years longer before needing additional bioreactor landfill cells.  There is some discussion that a bioreactor landfill could later on be dug up to use the soil for fertilizer and then reuse the landfill space again, but this is yet to be a reality.

The key to utilizing anaerobic biodegradation with organic garbage is that it creates a greater value proposition over composting.  With composting, the organic material is artificially processed to accelerate aerobic biodegradation resulting in compost material which makes a great rich soil.  What is off gassed is CO2 which is released into the atmosphere as a GHG.  Some would argue that this would be a zero sum game but it really depends on the organic material and the life cycle of that material.

Markets for compost material are very specific to the geographical location of that composting facility.  In many cases today, there are not enough markets available to utilize the compost material and a lot of it ends up as soil cover in landfills.  With utilizing anaerobic biodegradation either in anaerobic digesters or bioreactor landfills we can capture the methane and use it for cleans energy.  Once the methane is burned to create that energy the CH4 is converted into CO2 which now we are right back to where we were with composting but now we created clean energy which reduces our reliance on fossil fuels.  The soil that remains from anaerobic biodegradation can also be used as fertilizer.  The additional value proposition of creating CH4 vs. CO2 has much more value and results in a better environmental solution.

According to the EPA as of April 2009, there are approximately 480 operational LFG energy projects in the United States. In addition, about 130 projects are currently under construction or are exploring development options and opportunities. These are landfills that convert the LFG to clean, inexpensive energy.  New Jersey’s Governor Jon S. Corzine’s Energy Master Plan touts landfill methane gas as one of the key renewable energy sources that the state hopes will combine to supply 30 percent of New Jersey’s electricity by 2020. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/27/new-jersey-landfills-capt_n_138076.html

There is much we can learn about our past, present and how to better design our future from both a social and environmental perspective.  It is in the nature of archaeology to look at the past but it is in the best interest for the human race to stay focused on the future.

References:

By Danny Clark
ENSO Bottles, LLC

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I’m reading an interesting book and you might want to take a look.  Its “Garbage Land,” by Elizabeth Royte.

It’s an excellent point of view on what happens to our waste and the consequenses.

Max

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