Using Home Compostable Packaging
Has rubbish day ever rolled around, you have been stomping down on your whiffy pile of plastic and wondered, where does all this stuff go? Or extended your mind out further to include everyone in your street or city, and thought where does all that stuff go? How about over a year or 10 years? It gets mind bending fast!
So what are we to do? As a consumer, it can be tough when you want to make a better choice. Walking around the store, nearly everything is stuffed into plastic packaging. I think it was said best by Douglas McMaster, owner of Silo Restaurant in Brighton: “Waste is a failure of the imagination”.... “We have designed waste into this world. I’m certain we can design waste out again”. Silo restaurant is a radical and inspirational place where they have committed to zero waste, they literally have no bin, and have forged better systems and ways to eliminate waste.
When I was living and working in the UK I made a pilgrimage to this zero waste mecca and was blown away by how elegantly they brought these concepts to life. The food was beautiful without being fussy or overcomplicated, and the flavours were novel while being balanced and delicious. This delightful offering was achieved in a system void of waste. Douglas had fought tooth and nail to provide an example of how things can be done better, taking the first step, and making it easier for the rest of us.
I recommend checking out his book or his TED talk (I have no affiliation, I’m just a fan of his work):
Zero waste inspiration
In my time working as a chef in Bristol I worked in a number of great little restaurants where there was a strong emphasis on sustainability. One was a small tapas bar, Poco, in the heart of Bristol. The other, the Ethicurian, was more upscale dining and put an emphasis on set menus that reflected nature and showcased the amazing produce from the garden the restaurant was set around. The sustainable initiatives that worked and continued to work in the long run were; more direct connections with the producers, and simple systematised solutions. Things can get quite hectic in a kitchen and unless the solution is simple, with a clear process worked into the daily operations, they tended to fall apart when things got busy enough to make your vision go blurry.
The same is true for solutions that will work in the long run at home. They have to be simple and realistic for them to work. That is why I love home compostable packaging as a solution. It requires very little change as it delivers the same convenience as conventional packaging, and it puts a simple solution in the hands of the consumer. Chop it up, put it in the compost, packaging problem solved. That’s why we at Wildwood are committed to sustainable packaging.
Compostable cups, often used for takeaway coffee cups are great, but they don’t break down very easily in a home compost and require a sometimes tricky extra step for the consumer. This is because many places in NZ are lacking access to commercial composting facilities, the simple systematised solutions aren’t there for us to follow, therefore these cups are all too likely to end up in the bin if you don’t have an available compost outlet for them.
Another key reason I am so keen to support this fantastic technology is to help support the growth of this industry. The more producers begin to adopt this technology, the faster economies of scale will develop. Leading to:
Increased quality and innovation
Decreasing prices
Price decreases are likely to lead to more producers using it
When this point is reached, we can start to consider ways to remove plastic packaging entirely.
If you think about it logically, it makes far more sense to use plant materials directly than to use non-renewable stored energy to make our packaging (oil and gas). If we are going to continue to survive and thrive on this wonderful planet, things need to start happening in a more logical and sustainable way.
The great thing about home compostable packaging is it gives you a solution and asks very little in return.
Change is happening fast these days and in many ways, the power of the consumer is growing. By supporting companies that are using this packaging, you are giving positive change a little push along.
What is it made from and how does it work?
The packaging we use is made from raw materials to finished bags at a factory in Hamilton, New Zealand. It starts with the raw materials being made into individual layers of film. These layers are then laminated together to form the high barrier films that lock in freshness. These laminated films are then converted into finished bags. The raw materials used to make these films are a mixture of sustainably sourced wood pulp and GM-free corn sources, which have been certified to the European or Australian home compostable standards (OK compost home or AS5810)
How good is that! Made from sustainable resources, and puts the solution in your hands. No nasty stuff filling up your bin or disgusting hole in the ground.
So the composting bit. There are plenty of great articles about how to create a successful composting environment, so I won’t delve deeply into it here, but it is worth keeping the key variables in mind.
Hannah Malony from Good Life Permaculture has some great tips…..
What makes composting work?
For organic matter to be broken down into compost and to break home compostable packaging you need a combination of:
Heat
Water
Oxygen
Soil
Microorganisms
It also helps if you cut the packaging up with a pair of scissors to increase the surface area of the used package. This will help it break down more quickly. If you manage these factors well, you could break your bag down into tiny bits in as little as 14 weeks, which is pretty quick when you consider that a plastic bottle can take 450 years to break down.
So it's simple really. If we don’t want to end up turning our beautiful planet into a massive rubbish heap, it's time to get behind this amazing new technology and give positive change a boost. Well, that may be a bit of an oversimplification ;)
I know consumer packaging is only a small piece of a massive problem, but it is a great step in the right direction. Hopefully these steps are leading the way to a better way of existing. A more logical and harmonious way of living on this planet.
