For Business

Consumers often link attributes of ‘recyclable’ or ‘compostable’ with increased sustainability.  Unfortunately, these are often not reliable indicators of reduced environmental impacts.  These particular attributes refer to what one does with the package upon disposal — recycle it or compost it.  However, the majority of environmental impacts of single-use packaging are in the material extraction, package manufacturing and transportation stages.  So, a steel canister used to package coffee may be recyclable, but it requires a lot of material and is heavy. While the can may be recycled, it has much higher environmental impacts — including greenhouse gas emissions — than a non-recyclable pouch used for the same amount of coffee.  

Bioplastics is a complicated field which includes compostable plastic packaging.  While this type of packaging may intuitively appear more sustainable, it presents a number of challenges.  First of all, compostable plastic packaging may have higher impacts than conventional materials.  A main reason is that renewable sources often rely on industrial agricultural processes, which themselves require fossil fuels and energy to produce, as does the manufacturing of the packaging itself.  Further, consumers are often confused as to how to dispose of compostable plastic packaging, so it ends up in all three streams: organics, recycling, and garbage.  This creates problems, and regardless, virtually all this type of packaging in Canada is removed and sent to landfill, where it has a good chance of generating methane, a potent greenhouse gas.  Claims like ‘compostable’ or ‘biodegradable’ have little meaning unless they are substantiated by a valid certification, such as BPI or BNQ.