I have been trying to compost some of corn plastic and compostable paper goods out there with varying success. The paper goods break down in about two weeks once they are full soaked with water. If the are not wet, they don’t break down. (Which I suspect would happen if they are tied in a plastic bag and sent to the landfill).

Last spring, I put some corn plastic utensils in my compost pile to see how they would do. They have gone through two piles without showing any signs of breakdown. Last fall, I put them into a third new pile (which I expect to fully break down over the winter). I am waiting for spring to dig them out and see what state they are in.

Can your creative reuse center use the Styrofoam packaging? We have something similar and I see strange packing material in there often. The volunteers say someone takes if for reuse.
.-= Condo Blues´s last blog ..Make Microwave Hand Warming Gloves =-.

When styrofoam happens to me I take it to Arts Junktion nearby for the school board to distribute, or to the University of Toronto to recycle.

PLA pusses me off because it can only compost in industrial facilities and buggers up plastic recycling. Potato starch is a bit less aweful, and vegetable cellulose because they biodegrade.

When I grow up and run a restaurant, durable takeout containers will be sold at cost. They will each be imprinted with a coupon with a dollar value so that people will comb back to my restaurant for more orders.

Happy Birthday, Beth!
.-= Tracey´s last blog ..Specials and New Lower Prices =-.

It occurred to me that organic crops aren’t necessarily fertilized with compost made from organic products. So that chemicals, genetic modifications, and bacteria that we’re trying to avoid by eating organic can be passed along. I guess we could start thinking in terms of “generations” of organic. First-generation might still use non-organic fertilizer, but second-generation would use fertilizer made from organic waste, though including first-generation. Eventually, the amount of unwanted stuff in organic food would become so tiny that you could forget about it, though maybe you basically can already. (Though if you believe in homeopathy, a tiny amount of contaminant would change the whole crop!) Anyway, you could judge the quality of organic produce by how many generations it was. Of course, you could just start from scratch with compost made from wild sources, virgin sources that have never known human intervention/modification.