Waste management companies say a lack of regulation around product packaging
means consumers are being duped into buying things which aren't nearly as
green as they promise. Recyclable, compostable, biodegradable, what else is
there eco-friendly, these are all terms being plastered across all sorts of
products these days from coffee cups to toothbrushes. But knowing what they
actually mean and how they can be disposed of can be very confusing. To
find out more our reporter Ellie Jay went to Raglan where residents are on a
mission to become New Zealand's first waste free town. Tucked away in the hills
of the Waikato town of Raglan is a community enterprise that takes in
everything that the town's 5,000 inhabitants throw away. Xtreme zero
waste is also home to a huge composting unit. The concrete trough is 40 metres
long and 4 metres high with a sliding roof. Inside there are piles of food
waste in various stages of composting. We set up the feed stock in the compost
like a lasagne with the food waste bags and the green waste and then it is moved along
and as it moves along the food and the bags basically
disappear. They break down into compost and then it looks like this!
Liz Stanway is organics team leader at Xtreme zero waste
she says 75% of Raglan's waste is diverted from landfill and the composter
could divert nearly another 20% But plastics present a problem. Smaller items
like bottle caps plastic bags and fruit stickers slip through the hand sorting
process and can contaminate the compost. We really have become plastic
addicts and we know with the green sword, you know China saying we don't
want to have the world's recycled plastic to be processed here that we
really need to look at how we use plastic packaging. This week they are
adding some plastics to the composter on purpose.
Amanda Moxey is researching a new type of single-use plastic
she's adding forks, food boxes and clear plastic cups, which all claim to be fully
compostable. A coffee cup we brought with us says biodegradable but even this
can't go in. Amanda explains biodegradable means
organisms break the cup down but it could take hundreds of years. Compostable
means it'll break down in about 12 weeks and certified compostable means it won't
leave toxins in the soil. We need to adopt some form of labeling like we have
now for recycling that would have a very clear indication like maybe a logo
something really clear and simple that would explain this is commercially
compostable or hot compostable or home compostable and then you would know what
you can do with it. Amanda is trialing plastics that meet international
compostable standards. New Zealand doesn't have standard labels on
compostables and a huge difference in symbols can make it hard for consumers
to know what to do with them. This one is a clear see-through cup that you
might get at an event or a festival, how could you tell that something like this
would be compostable? At the moment without standardization of any marking
can just tell on the bottom it says PLA which is poly lactic acid and I know
that can be composted so if you know that that can be composted then that's
the only way of telling at the moment. Most compostable products are only able
to be broken down in commercial facilities so what's happening to the
rest of them? At the moment unless there is infrastructure in place, collection,
containment and ability to compost mean it's possibly going into landfill.
Commercial compositors like this one can be replicated across the country but Liz
warns that certified compostable plastics aren't a Silver Bullet. I look
in the supermarket shelves and think to myself if all of that was compostable
what would the impact be? The impact would be the mountains of plastic that
we see on TV coverage not being able to go to China would suddenly become
a compostable challenge. The idea that we can replace petroleum-based plastic with
biodegradable plastic and I would actually question that we should think
hard before we make that quick transition from one kind of place it to
another and think that it's good.