The Controversy and Complex History of Compostable Packaging Do Not Determine Its Future Direction

Last spring, A1 Organics, Colorado's largest composter, drew a line in the sand—or rather, in the compost.

In April 2023, the company announced it would no longer accept compostable packaging and other paper materials due to unacceptable levels of non-compostable contaminants in the food scraps and yard waste it received. Three-gallon compostable bags certified by the Compost Manufacturers Association were not included in this change.

A1 Organics is neither the first nor the only U.S. composter in recent years to stop accepting compostable packaging to protect product quality. Many other composters have also taken pre-sorting steps to remove compostable packaging along with contaminants. However, at the same time, more municipalities are launching composting systems with the help of state laws, more facilities are beginning to accept compostable packaging, and production of compostable packaging is rising.

"The three biggest issues facing compostable packaging are contamination, contamination, and contamination," said Neil Edgar, executive director of the California Compost Coalition and chair of the Legislative and Environmental Affairs Committee of the California Organics Recycling Council. Edgar has represented composters on compostable packaging issues for 20 years and continues to advocate for accepting such packaging.

A1 Organics has since slightly relaxed its restrictions, also allowing smaller compostable bags, but given the company's long operating history in Colorado, the new policy sent ripples through the composting industry.

Debate continues over whether compostable packaging should be accepted, which types should be accepted, and how to address the technical processes and communication challenges involved in successful programs. San Francisco and Minneapolis, two U.S. cities, offer different approaches and outcomes that may provide lessons for other cities.

A microcosm of the Bay Area

San Francisco is seen as a pioneer in food waste diversion, but it is also a microcosm of the complexities involved in scaling up mandatory composting systems.

The city's curbside food scrap collection composting program began as a pilot in 1996 and became mandatory for residents and businesses in 2009. According to the city, the program has kept more than 2.5 million tons of compostable material out of landfills and diverts about 500 tons of material daily.

But guidance to residents has not always been consistent. As of fall 2023, the "What Goes Where" page on the website of service provider Recology listed "biodegradable" bags as unacceptable materials (bags labeled biodegradable are unlikely to be compostable) but did not mention accepting compostable plastic bags placed with food scraps.

"That was a mistake," said Hilary Near, senior coordinator for commercial zero waste at the San Francisco Department of the Environment. She added that Recology published the list of acceptable and unacceptable items without authorization from the city, and that all consumers should be directed to the shared website SFRecycles.org. Recology declined to be interviewed for this article.

Labels on curbside bins clearly state that compostable products certified by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) are acceptable. BPI works with manufacturers to certify packaging for compostability based on ASTM standards.

However, when food waste collected from the city arrives at Recology's Blossom Valley Organics North facility, it goes through a mechanical sorting process designed to remove everything except food and plant waste.

"We are not the only ones facing the problem that these mechanical systems cannot distinguish between traditional plastics and compostable plastics," Near said. But she added that numerous programs and studies show that residents—especially apartment dwellers, whose centralized collection carts may be far from their kitchens—are more likely to comply with food diversion rules when they can use compostable liner bags.

Moreover, Near is confident that compostable plastics that are not screened out do fully biodegrade at the facility, which uses an aerated static pile process.

The Minneapolis model

Two thousand miles to the northeast, the city of Minneapolis launched citywide residential curbside organics collection in 2016. But one key difference is that the program is voluntary, with about half of residents participating. Large food-generating businesses are also required to separate organic waste.

The city's website clearly states that the program accepts BPI-certified compostable products but does not explicitly list compostable liner bags. Haulers also manually inspect each bin for contamination before collection.

Organics are sent to Specialized Environmental Technologies (SET), where Jack Duame serves as quality control and environmental compliance specialist. SET is now owned by WM, which works with customers to discourage contamination. Its composting process does not include mechanical sorting in the early stages, so it does not remove compostable and non-compostable plastics together.

"SET does view compostable packaging as a necessary path toward achieving sustainability goals and getting closer to zero waste," Duame said.

However, he added, the voluntary nature of Minneapolis's residential program means its contamination levels are likely far lower than those of materials Recology collects curbside in San Francisco. Residents who choose to participate "are more interested in being good stewards and actively participating," he said.

SET's primary tool for ensuring high-quality compost is refusing to accept materials with higher contamination levels. Workers make judgments based on visual inspection. Once materials deemed acceptably contaminated are dumped, workers manually pick out obvious contaminants that are easy to remove.

Materials are not shredded before entering SET's aerated static piles, where they remain for 45 to 60 days, the first stage of biodegradation. Duame said this means contaminants can be easily removed during the trommel screening step between the first and second stages of the composting process. The second stage lasts two to six months.

Getting it right

A common concern among stakeholders—from municipalities to composters, certification bodies, and industry advocates—is that contamination threatens their shared goals of reducing methane emissions from organic waste and improving soil health. Achieving this requires consumers to receive clear guidance, feel that their actions make a difference, and become advocates for waste reduction.

"There's 'recyclable' and actually being recycled, and there's 'compostable' and actually being composted," said Alex Truelove, BPI's legislative and advocacy manager. "Obviously, whether we have systems in place to support these products is a big part of that."

BPI conducted a survey with the Composting Consortium at Closed Loop Partners to determine how different labeling and design techniques affect consumer perceptions of compostable and non-compostable packaging. The survey found that consumer confusion about how to handle compostable packaging negatively affects both composting and recycling systems—nearly a third of respondents said they would put compostable packaging in recycling bins.

BPI, in partnership with the U.S. Composting Council (USCC) and other stakeholders, has published product labeling legislative guidance to help policymakers advance effective "truthful labeling" laws for compostable products. Groups including BPI have also advocated for incorporating compostability requirements into extended producer responsibility laws, while urging the Federal Trade Commission to revise compostability environmental marketing guidelines in the next round of Green Guides updates.

To date, five states—California, Washington, Minnesota, Maryland, and Colorado—have enacted laws governing labeling and marketing of compostable packaging, prohibiting terms such as "biodegradable" or other information that could mislead consumers.

"The other 45 states need to do the same so that packaging manufacturers can produce products that meet similar or nearly identical standards nationwide. We can't take a piecemeal approach," Edgar said. In addition to his work in California, he is a board member of the USCC.

Susan Thoman, a former leadership team member at Seattle composter Cedar Grove, founded the Compost Manufacturers Alliance (CMA) while grappling with inconsistent outcomes for compostable packaging. "BPI has done a good job," Thoman said, ensuring that compostable materials "truly biodegrade into biomass and water, rather than fragmenting into microplastic pieces."

But while BPI certification is lab-based, she said composters need field-based assurance. To that end, CMA conducts field testing to certify packaging for compostability in specific types of composting environments, such as windrow, in-vessel, and aerated static pile. CMA recently stated that its certification process will no longer accept external certifications in place of lab reports.

A1 Organics is one of CMA's field testing partners and requires CMA certification for the compostable liner bags it accepts.

CMA advocated for and participated in the development of Washington State's organics management law and supported Washington's HB 1033, passed this year, which directs the state Department of Ecology to develop a strategy to reduce organics contamination, evaluate compostable product standards, and support organic waste management. CMA has also advised on organics diversion and EPR laws in other states, including California.

At the federal level, three bills—the COMPOST Act, the Recycling and Composting Accountability Act, and the Zero Food Waste Act—were reintroduced this year. Congress has not yet voted on them.

Other industry efforts include a petition to the National Organic Program to revise its current rule prohibiting the use of compost produced with compostable plastics in certified organic farming. This forces any composter labeling its products as USDA-certified organic to screen out all compostable plastics.

A view shared by many municipal composting stakeholders is that compostable packaging helps bring more food waste into organics recycling programs and therefore has clear value.

"We do see compostable products as a means to an end, which is getting these desirable organic feedstocks out of landfills and into composting facilities," said Margaret Eldridge, BPI's certification director. "It's a bit like the tortilla chip that gets the guacamole into your mouth. What you really want is the guacamole, but the chip is an effective vehicle for delivering it."

Navigating packaging restrictions and systems

After A1 announced its restrictions on accepted materials, Eco-Cycle, a nonprofit recycler providing organics collection services in Boulder County and Broomfield County, Colorado, worked to educate businesses and residents about the change.

"People were really disappointed that compostable products were no longer being accepted," said Marti Matsch, deputy director of Eco-Cycle. "People have really come to rely on these products, not just in restaurants but also for family picnics and community events."

But Matsch added that Eco-Cycle saw this as an opportunity to "shift the community toward reuse," using "outreach and education to help people understand that any single-use item—whether recyclable or compostable—is not always necessary." She pointed to DeliverZero as a promising model for reusable takeout packaging.

San Francisco's Department of the Environment is also pushing reuse and has launched a grant program to help restaurants replace single-use items with reusable plates, cups, and utensils. Under a 2007 ordinance, businesses in the city must use recyclable or compostable food service ware for takeout.

But Neil Edgar said that while reuse is important, consumers ultimately seek convenience, which means "compostable packaging needs a path forward."

He said the so-called failures of compostable packaging stem from a mismatch between what brand owners claim consumers want and what actually happens at the end of a product's life cycle (mostly landfilling). The packaging industry "has not done much to address the labeling concerns that composters care about most," while continuing to produce more products without considering whether those products are sold into markets with commercial composting infrastructure.

A sign of growing attention in the field is that researchers at Clemson University in South Carolina (home to the Sonoco Foundation-funded Food Security and Health Food Research Laboratory of Excellence) are launching a packaging and sustainability program that plans to help brands test packaging compostability while working with them to scale up manufacturing processes for compostable packaging.

Rhodes Yepsen, executive director of BPI, said producers need to work with municipalities, composters, and government agencies to align around common goals for designing and testing materials. In his view, it makes no sense for companies to spend "millions of dollars and years of R&D to ensure compostability, only to have it thrown away."