by Marissa Pomerance

We’re all trying our best to be thoughtful and mindful and reduce our consumption and reduce our waste and stop buying plastic and overall make better choices for the planet and our families and ourselves. OF COURSE WE ARE.

But are we actually making better choices with all of our “eco-friendly” swaps in an effort to reduce plastic?

Welp, it turns out, when it comes to the straw, we absolutely are not.

We are all so gifted at virtue signaling our “good choices” on Instagram, and patting ourselves on the back for using straws made from “corn,” but it turns out, nearly every “compostable” and “biodegradable” eco-plastic straw alternative is a gigantic lie.

We enlisted the help of expert, Candace Partridge, to give us the cold, hard facts on these supposed eco-friendly plastics. She’s a visiting researcher at the UCL Institute of Finance and Technology, and did her postdoctoral research on plastic waste management at the UCL Plastic Waste Hub. She helped literally write the paper on biodegradable plastics.

And she….didn’t hold back.

1. Are we making any progress towards finding real, environmentally-friendly plastics?

Candace Partridge: A lot of well-intentioned people are trying to find alternative ways of producing plastics that don’t involve petrochemicals. At first glance, this is a very laudable goal, and an excellent way to try and break free from the tyranny of Big Oil and cut down on plastic waste.

But, most people are fixating on the physical garbage problem of plastic waste— that is, how things end up in landfills or oceans, and how long they take to break down.

However, that’s just the end problem. The root problem is that plastic itself is usually a petrochemical which involves a great deal of carbon emissions to extract, refine, and process into plastic.

So when talk about creating “environmentally-friendly plastics,” we have to think about the total environmental impact, which is more than just what ends up in trash bins and landfills. To find a truly eco-friendly plastic, we have to reduce the carbon footprint of the entire life cycle of that plastic, from raw materials to manufacturing to emissions to trash.

2. What are the plastic alternatives currently in development or on the market?

PLA is one of the most common bioplastics. Producing conventional plastic requires around 200,000 barrels of oil per day in the US alone. But PLA is produced from vegetable-based feedstocks, like corn starch, making it more “renewable” than conventional plastics. So at the very least, bioplastics are trying to divest from fossil fuels.

PLA is also meant to be compostable, and supposed to break down into harmless compounds (though they’ve been found to produce methane in landfills), whereas traditional plastic leeches chemicals into landfills and breaks down into microplastics.

3. So what’s the problem with these alternative plastics, then?

On the surface, these bioplastics sound like an incredible alternative. But since bioplastics are so new, they’re raising a lot of questions. And some are having unintended consequences.

Here are a few things we don’t know about bioplastics:

Is the total carbon footprint of bioplastics really lower than petroplastics? From sourcing to manufacturing to degradation and emissions. So far, the answer isn’t clear cut. We can’t say, with any certainty, that bioplastics have a smaller carbon footprint overall.
Are we potentially diverting land use away from food production to make plastics? This happened to corn production to make biodiesel here in the US. Land was diverted away from growing corn for food, and the price of corn skyrocketed, leaving a lot of people in Latin America hungry.
Are these bioplastics easier to manage from a waste perspective? Are they recyclable? Do they biodegrade? Can they be composted and under what circumstances? Will they create micro plastics as they break down?

The problem is that there are a lot of unknowns, so moving quickly to replace all traditional plastic with bioplastic could do more harm than good in the long run if we’re not careful.

4. Are bioplastics easily recyclable?

Unfortunately, not really.

First, it’s currently not economical to recycle conventional plastics anyways; it costs more to recycle than the market will pay for the end recycled product.

Second, though PLA can theoretically be recycled like regular plastic (though there’s still some debate here), the problem is that there are currently no widespread bioplastic recycling streams, so recycling isn’t really an option for the average consumer.

5. Are bioplastics truly compostable?

A lot of bioplastic vendors tout their wares as compostable, but this is a whole bunch of greenwashing.

Bioplastics are not compostable for the regular consumer, and are only truly compostable in industrial composts using specialized equipment on a commercial scale. With very specific conditions and proper equipment, PLA can take 90 days to break down in a commercial compost. But most consumers don’t have access to these industrial composts, as few of them even accept residential compost material. Even worse, commercial composts hate bioplastics and regard them as contaminants because they significantly slow down the process of composting food waste.

So vendors are marketing their products as totally fine to throw in an at-home compost bin, when they’re not.

6. Will bioplastics biodegrade in conventional landfills?

Bioplastics like PLA can theoretically biodegrade in certain conditions, like the industrial composts mentioned above. But since there isn’t any other waste stream for bioplastics, they usually end up in the landfill, which is where conventional plastics end up anyway, and pretty much nothing breaks down in landfill conditions. In fact, in a landfill, bioplastics can take as many years as regular plastic to break down.

So selling bioplastics as “biodegradable” is more greenwashing. Even if they did break down, they could create micro plastics, which get into our water.

So bioplastics, in my view, are currently not the panacea they want to sell themselves as and are pretty much pure greenwashing in the majority of applications.

7. What’s the problem with biodegradable straws?

Bioplastic-based, “biodegradable, compostable” straws are not biodegradable, easily compostable, or eco-friendly. Instead, they have the same negative consequences of conventional plastic single-use straws, but trick people into buying and using them guilt-free as if there are no repercussions around their production or disposal.

8. What are the best alternatives to plastic straws?

Carry a reusable straw.
Pasta straws, which are compostable with no issue and will genuinely biodegrade.
Straw straws.
Bamboo straws.
No straw at all for those of us who don’t need them!

9. What other "eco-friendly” products are bullshit?

Sorry to burst your bubble, but…

Canvas shopping bags: You’d have to use a reusable canvas shopping bag hundreds of times for it to make up for the carbon footprint of a single use plastic grocery bag.
Glass jars and bottles: They’re much heavier to ship than plastic, so they have a higher carbon footprint due to weight, and glass isn’t as readily recycled as it used to be.
Cleaning products that come in pouches: These are definitely one of those areas that need due consideration to avoid greenwashing. A lot of these pouches are not recyclable because they are made of films laminated together. Laminates and films are very difficult to recycle: they get tangled up in the sorting machinery and are a nightmare to cope with. Also, because laminates are nearly impossible to break down into their component layers, they are not easily streamed for recycling. Whereas a trigger spray bottle is fairly readily accepted for recycling, although it is hard to ascertain how many of them actually get recycled. So on the one hand, the pouches are decreasing the amount of plastic packaging, but on the other, they are not recyclable. There are some companies that claim to be able to recycle pouches like these, but it’s not clear yet if that’s true.
Bioplastic utensils, cups, tampon applicators, bottles, and pad liners: I’ve seen a lot of these products claim to be “eco-friendly,” but they’re made from the same problematic bioplastics we discussed earlier. People think that a bioplastic applicator will magically break down when they won’t. Tampon applicators are one of the most commonly picked up beach plastics because they are so commonly flushed, and bioplastic applicators won’t address that issue. Basically, any “eco-friendly” plastic product made from bioplastics like PLA are not degradable or compostable.
Disposable or “flushable” wipes: All wipes contain some level of plastic so they hold together, up to and including the ones that claim to be flushable. But in actuality, they clog the sewer system because they don’t break down and cost our water utilities a ton to extract (ew). Some wipes claim to be biodegradable and/or compostable, but I’m dubious of this assertion. I really look forward to the day that I can ban wipes from my house. I never buy makeup remover wipes. Please just use a washcloth!
Biodegradable shipping material: This is nearly always BS. “Biodegradable” is a really terrible catchall greenwashing word.

10. Are there any good, eco-friendly products that are genuinely compostable or biodegradable?

If I have a choice, I opt for anything made of recycled paper, bamboo, or recyclable metals. Personally, I’d sooner take a pair of bamboo chopsticks than a bioplastic fork. Wood and bamboo are biodegradable and compostable in small quantities.

Here are a few examples of some legitimate eco-friendly swaps that we can feel good about:

Bamboo Paper Towels: I haven’t seen any recyclable paper towels on the market, but I do use some bamboo reusable ones that you can throw in the washer and reuse a few times. If you are buying something like paper towels that are going to get thrown away, it is a good thing to try and buy ones that are made from recycled content, because buying things made from recycled materials helps create a demand for recycled materials that might otherwise not be worthwhile to reclaim.
Pasta straws, again: They are made from a food substance, which makes them home compostable (and therefore very biodegradable). These ones, in particular, are basically a rice flour version of the pasta straws I mentioned earlier. Of course, the only way to really know is to buy them and actually compost them, but given these contain no plastics at all, I think they would do fine.
Compostable paper packaging: Paper is compostable, as long as it isn’t laminated, so paper waste is fine to compost as long as it isn’t the majority of the compost waste stream. Anything that asserts to be specifically “home compostable” and contains no plastics at all are often legit.

11. Should it be the responsibility of consumers to make better choices?

With an issue this complex, it shouldn’t be the sole responsibility for the consumer to do all of the heavy lifting and decide what is truly sustainable. There needs to be clear standards and labelling, which would also require industry and government to come into alignment. Until then, the best we can do is get the word out that these bioplastics are not a perfect remedy. Not yet, at least.

12. How can we, as consumers, make better choices and use less plastic?

CP: Unfortunately, our desire to make better, environmentally-friendlier choices are often not as easy or clear cut as we’d like, especially we when look at the greater carbon emissions picture as opposed to purely tangible waste.

But honestly? My answer is this: buy less stuff, and try to reuse as much as possible. Everything has an environmental cost, no matter how “natural” or “biodegradable” or “sustainable.” We need, first, to buy less, then to buy smarter, especially by buying used and reusable. If we use our existing things over and over, we can drastically diminish their carbon and waste footprints.

Beyond that, we need to campaign for better waste management and investment, particularly better recycling and composting infrastructure. If we buy products made from recycled product, we can help create a demand for recycled materials, which incentivizes better recycling infrastructure.

I’d also love to see better social infrastructure for reusing products, which creates a more vibrant circular economy. There are some great refill programs, like Loop, which need to be much more widely available and utilized.

And truthfully, nobody can be perfect, even when armed with tons of information. I still have tons of products made from non-recyclable plastic in my house because they are truly unavoidable sometimes, so really it’s just a matter of doing the best we can.

"Eco-Plastic” Straws Are Tricking All Of Us