I recently had a friend come to me and tell me she wanted to try a new eco-friendly toothpaste. She was interested in going zero waste with her oral care while supporting small business, and she wanted my help. 

This article was originally published on Midtown Composting

Of course, a “zero waste” toothpaste that you buy at the store is not truly zero waste. It is quite literally impossible to produce such products with no waste. After consideration, I realized that most people who are interested in the “zero waste” trend are not genuinely interested in radically reducing their consumption. If someone truly wanted to get as close to “zero waste” as possible they would simply make their own toothpaste instead of looking for the right product to buy. It seems people are really just trying to feel better about their consumption habits. It only makes sense that in our capitalistic society we instinctually gravitate towards supporting small businesses before we consider seriously reducing our consumption.

I am happy to report that my friend is very excited about making her own toothpaste and has yet again surprised me by being better than average.

When I was a young teenager, I remember the first time I read about how bad plastic straws were for the environment and the damage they do to wildlife. I was outraged, so naturally, I did what anyone would do. I hopped online and found the next product to purchase: the “zero waste” metal straws from amazon. I could drink my restaurant drinks with a reusable straw while looking down upon those who continued to use their disposable straws. It didn’t occur to me to skip the straw when I went out to eat. It didn’t occur to me to eat out less. And the environmental impact of ordering my “zero waste” products from Amazon, of all places, didn’t occur to me either. 

I went deeper into my trendy, eco-friendly lifestyle. One day, I said to my stepfather, “I need a zero waste travel utensil kit!”

He looked at me, perplexed, and said, “Why not just… bring a set of utensils from home?” I scoffed, annoyed that he would ask such a ridiculous question – one that I did not have the answer to. It would take several years and quite a shift in lifestyle for me to realize that what I thought was a desire to eliminate waste was in fact a desire to purchase new products to make me feel better about myself rather than to actually live a zero-waste lifestyle. 

I know that I am not alone in my desire to truly want to do better and to be a better steward of our Earth. So, besides reducing our consumption, which we should all be doing, what’s the best thing that we as individuals can do for the environment right now? It’s not using metal straws or switching to an eco-friendly toothpaste or even buying a Tesla. If you’re not already doing this, the most significant thing you can do for the betterment of our environment is to compost your food waste!

If you’re like most people, the first thing you might be wondering is, “What about recycling?” Composting is a form of recycling (the best kind!). But does composting food waste impact the environment as positively as household recycling? If you’re already recycling, riding your bike to work, reducing your consumption, and feeling too busy to take on another daily task, is composting food waste really worth your time?

Or maybe you’ve been hearing about how our country’s recycling is simply getting thrown away into landfills because China doesn’t want our recycling anymore. Maybe you’re disillusioned with recycling and don’t want to start a new chore that doesn’t really make a difference. Is composting our food waste really going to make that much of a difference?

To answer these questions, let’s ask another question first: What if you could only do one? Hypothetically, what if you could either compost your food waste or recycle your trash, but you couldn’t do both? Which would make the most difference?

Let’s compare the beneficial impacts of both.

So, Just How Much Food Waste do We Generate?

Research from the American Journal of Agricultural Economics shows that the average American household throws away 31.9% (nearly 220 pounds per person) of its food a year. This adds up to a grand total of $240 billion dollars worth of food nationwide and 50 billion pounds of food. Outside of our own kitchens, 72 billion pounds of food is thrown away at restaurants, grocery stores, farms, etc. America wastes nearly twice as much food as other developed countries, a total of 122 billion pounds of food waste each year. 

It’s easy to read numbers like that and think, “Wow. That’s a lot of food waste.” But have you ever tried to comprehend how much a billion actually is? Chances are you would have no concept of the size of a billion pounds of food waste. If you’re curious, the video below breaks down how big a billion is compared to a million. 

Now, we’re not just talking about one billion, we’re talking about 122 billion pounds. A pound is a lot bigger than a dime, and 122 is a lot bigger than one.

Now that you understand that you can’t really comprehend how much a billion is, how do you go about comprehending the enormity of 122 billion pounds? 

The Eiffel Tower takes up about 26,240,000 million cubic feet of space. One cubic foot has the capacity to hold 43.9 pounds of food waste. That means we could conceivably stuff an Eiffel Tower-shaped pyramid with 597,722 pounds of food waste.

We generate 122 billion pounds of food waste, a year, in America alone. That’s around 334,000,000 pounds of food a day. So, in one day, America can fill up 559 Eiffel Towers with food waste. 

In one year, with 122 billion pounds of food waste, America could fill 204,108 Eiffel Towers full of food waste. 

What Happens to All that Food Waste?

Obviously, 122 billion pounds of food waste leaves behind quite a footprint. Food production accounts for more than a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions. In the production process alone (working the land, growing, harvesting, transporting, and packaging) 3.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere.

Then there’s the food that is thrown away. When food ends up in landfills, it produces greenhouse gases. If food waste was its own country, it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, behind China and the U.S, respectively. 

Food waste sent to landfills produces a 50-50 gas mixture of carbon dioxide and methane. Methane is said to contribute to global warming at a rate of 25 times that of carbon dioxide, as it is 25 times more effective at trapping solar radiation. Food scraps being transported to landfills typically travel much farther than food waste that is being composted. It’s estimated that garbage trucks in the city average 3 miles per gallon. Food waste can travel up to 500 miles before reaching its final destination. When all is said and done, every pound of food thrown away generated an average of 3.8 pounds of carbon-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions.

The EPA’s data estimates that in 2017 a total of 535.6 billion pounds of municipal solid waste (MSW) was generated (a lot of Eiffel towers). Out of that, 81.4 billion pounds was compostable waste. Some of this waste (54 billion pounds) was composted. The majority of what gets composted is yard waste. Food waste makes up 1% of what gets composted (5.4 billion pounds). Yet food waste was the second largest contributor to municipal solid waste behind paper trash (including cardboard). The United States composted only 2.6 million tons of waste while recycling 67 million tons of waste in 2017.

Okay, What about Recycling?

Unfortunately, only a small portion of the plastic produced each year actually gets recycled. A total of 35.4 million tons of plastic waste was generated in 2017. Only 3 million tons of this was actually recycled, while 26.8 million tons of plastic ended up in landfills, making up for nearly 20% of all MSW in landfills. The rest was combusted.

Amongst the natural resources saved from recycling glass, one ton of recycled glass prevents 700 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released into the air. Paper makes up 40% of our trash. With every ton of paper recycled, we reduce greenhouse gases by one ton of carbon equivalent. The same is true for cardboard. For each ton of cardboard recycled, around 1 ton of CO2 emissions is saved. Aluminum, steel, and tin can be recycled endlessly. Glass can be endlessly recycled without altering the purity or quality. Plastic and paper cannot be endlessly recycled. Paper can be recycled an average of 5 times, whereas plastic can be recycled an average of 7 times.

Carbon Sequestration

That being said, composting does more than just prevent the emissions of greenhouse gases from food rot. Composting sequesters carbon back into the environment and adds nutrients back into the ground. Whendee Silver, a UC Berkeley bio-geochemist, conducted an experiment in an attempt to effectively sequester carbon. The results of the experiment show that a one-time application of a half-inch layer of compost on rangeland can boost the soil’s carbon storage for up to 30 years. After spreading compost over the rangeland, there has been a significant increase in native perennial plants and birdlife. Healthy soil is an essential part of growing food. In order to have healthy soil, we have to give back to the earth.

Vermont is one of the few states in the US that has composting laws in place. If all 600,000+ people in Vermont were to participate in the composting program and each person generates 50kg (around 110 pounds) of compost, Vermont would generate around 31,350 tons of compost. Each ton of compost generated sequesters somewhere between 0.01- 1.00 ton of carbon dioxide from the soil. In Vermont alone, 15,675 tons of carbon could be sequestered (assuming each ton of compost sequesters 0.05 tons of carbon dioxide). If everyone in Vermont composted instead of using fertilizer, an additional 3,135 tons of carbon dioxide could be saved for a total of 18,810 tons of CO2. On a national scale, we could sequester more than a billion pounds of carbon into the soil if everyone composted. The amount of carbon sequestered in the soil depends on how well the soil is cared for, as well as what is in the compost. Soil that is well cared for does not have as much potential to sequester carbon as soil that has been neglected. Compost that is higher in nutrients also has a higher potential for carbon sequestration.

So, What’s Better? Composting or Recycling?

The EPA has a chart that breaks down how much CO2 equivalent we saved based on how much of each material was recycled or composted. When you break this down based on the EPA’s numbers, recycling paper and paper board result in the most CO2 saved (3.35 million tons of CO2 saved per ton of paper recycled), with metals in a close second (3.31 million tons), and composting food scraps in third place (2.68 million tons).

However, when you combine all recycled materials and compare it to composting food waste, things are almost tied. Recycling saves 2.71 million tons of CO2 equivalent for each ton of material recycled. Composting saved 2.68 million tons of CO2 equivalent for every ton of food waste composted.

So according to the EPA, it would look like composting and recycling have about the same environmental impact, depending on how much recycling and food waste one has to dispose of. In other words, from what the EPA is saying, if you could only do one, you would want to choose based on which weighed more: your recyclables or your food waste.

But this isn’t quite accurate. The EPA only looks at the CO2 saved by not throwing waste into a landfill. The EPA does account for the carbon sequestered into the ground when you use compost. Each ton of compost has the ability to sequester on average 0.5 tons of carbon. This puts the total amount of CO2 equivalent saved in composting above the amount of CO2 equivalent saved in recycling.

The next time you throw a piece of single-use plastic into the recycling bin for the environment, remember that you don’t really know where that plastic is going and if it’ll even be recycled. Composting is easy. You can do it at home in your yard, and you will know exactly where that compost is going and what it’s doing for the environment. Or you can compost with a local pick up or drop off service and find out what they’re doing with their compost. If you’re interested in how you can get started with composting, check out this article.

The purpose of this article is not to discourage recycling in favor of composting. We should all be growing as much of our own food as we can, composting, recycling, and reducing our consumption.

Sources:

• The Shocking Amount Of Food U.S. Households Waste Every Year-Forbes
• Food Waste Statistics, The Reality Of Food Waste- questrmg
• How Reducing Food Waste Could Ease Climate Change
• Food waste is responsible for 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions
• Food and drink
• Food: Material-Specific Data | Facts and Figures about Materials, Waste and Recycling
• How much can composting help to reduce my carbon footprint?
• A sprinkle of compost helps rangeland lock up carbon
• The Advantages of Recycling Paper
• How Does Recycling Save Energy?
• Industrial cardboard recycling can make a big impact
• Is recycling worth it?
• How much food waste goes to landfill in the US?
• Volume-to-Weight Conversion Factors, April 2016

We don’t really think about PLU stickers outside of the checkout line at the grocery store and the annoyance of peeling them off fruits and vegetables before we eat them. Even so, PLU stickers have managed to inspire confusion, prevent compost from being all it can be, and stay on top of the produce labeling game in spite of other, much more environmentally friendly options. There may be some things about these little labels that you haven’t thought of yet.

They Are Not Edible

The FDA has categorized both the stickers and the adhesive they use as safe to ingest. That categorization has led several articles saying it’s fine if you get a bite of sticker when you eat your food. But eating the stickers is like eating plastic wrap. In addition, the glues holding the stickers to the fruit are made of turpentine, petroleum, and urea-formaldehyde resins. The stickers won’t kill you if you eat them, but they definitely aren’t good for you.

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Stop Looking for 8s

For a while, there were rumors going around that PLU codes that began with an 8 indicated that the item labeled was a GMO. It turns out that there is a kernel of truth to that rumor…but that particular hack is not helpful for consumers.

Though the ‘8’ prefix (83000-84999) was once reserved for GMO produce items, the prefix was never used at retail.”

Independent Federation for Produce Standards

While this news is disappointing for those of us who were hoping to for an easy way to avoid GMOs, it make sense that most businesses wouldn’t make it that easy.

Composting Facilities Hate Them

PLU stickers are usually made of vinyl or another plastic film. These plastics are not biodegradable, and they’re not affected by the heat of compost piles. The small size of the stickers also enables them to escape most shredders and sifters, allowing the stickers to make it into finished compost. Sometimes facilities will have to purchase specialized equipment or even pay a picker to go through and find PLU stickers. Often times composting facilities will turn away massive loads of stickered, spoiled produce due to contamination issues.

PLU Stickers Are Voluntary

The federal government does not require PLU stickers. PLU sticker usage is driven by businesses. If it was cheaper or more effective to use another, more sustainable labeling system, PLU stickers would likely disappear quickly.

No, the PLU system is voluntary and based on business needs. It is not regulated by a governmental agency. Specifically, no regulatory body requires a PLU sticker on loose produce. Labeling produce with PLU codes are typically required by the retail industry to assist with point-of-sale (POS) identification.”

Independent Federation for Produce Standards

Lasers!

One solution to the problems of produce stickers involves lasering the label into the skin of produce. Laser labeling machines require more upfront investment than purchasing stickers, but once that initial investment is met, the process is actually cheaper. Dutch produce supplier and Swedish supermarket ICA ran a joint program that used laser technology to label avocados and sweet potatoes.

The calculations are that it costs the same, but sustainability for our consumers and ourselves is the biggest gain. I hope it will take off with more products and also non-organic. I can only imagine what a bigger retailer would be able to save. I really hope it spreads.”

Peter Hagg, ICA business unit manager

There is still work to be done on laser labels, as labels etched on citrus fruit are unreadable due to citrus peels’ regenerative qualities.

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Wash it Off

If you’ve ever wanted stickers to wash away, as opposed to cling forever, check out FruitWash. FruitWash is a solution posed by New York City engineer Scott Amron, and it consists of a label sticker that turns into an organic produce wash when washed in water.

Biodegradable and Compostable Options

In considering the issue of PLU stickers, there is the inevitable question…why not make these stickers biodegradable or compostable? Great news! These options already exist. Sinclair International, the largest fruit sticker company in the world offers a compostable option. Other companies also offer eco-friendly stickers. Businesses could eliminate massive quantities of food waste by switching to a biodegradable option, but they haven’t because compostable stickers are more expensive for them.

There are overall cheaper and more environmentally friendly fruit-labeling options than the one we are currently choosing. But these options require a larger initial investment, cost more money overall, or would necessitate the work of adapting a system that’s already in place. As a consumer, I find myself searching for stickerless options and fighting to peel off stickers before I put them in the compost bin while I wait for business to come to the realization that there are better ways to identify fruit.

Sources:

• The Truth about Fruit Stickers – Dirt Mag
• How Produce Stickers Contribute to Climate Change – CBC
• Those Little Produce Stickers? They’re a Big Waste Problem – Modern Farmer

Much of the discussion surrounding microplastics in the environment have focused on our oceans, but a new report from Germany confirms that these tiny bits of plastic are also entering the food chain through organic fertilizers. Reducing and reusing waste are key elements of a healthy ecosystem, but proper pretreatment of waste destined for organic fertilizer is essential to avoid contributing microplastics to the soil. Professor Ruth Freitag from the University of Bayreuth in Germany, one of the study’s authors, identifies that pretreatment as a key to minimizing the impact of plastics on the soil.

Related: How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors – Organic Lifestyle Magazine

We have plants where they use a lot of precautions and there we find hardly any plastic particles, and other plants where they simply use a shredder to prepare everything and break it down – there you find a lot…One example is people use plastic bags and then put everything together in the bin, and then this is entering the waste treatment plant and ending up in the fertilisers…”

Germany’s Recycling Efforts

Germany leads the world in recycling, with 65% percent of the population using the country’s color-coded bins. Almost 12 million tons of food and garden waste are composted or turned into bio-gas yearly. The researchers examined fertilizer samples from different types of waste treatment plants, finding samples from those plants converting biowaste contained plastic particles of varying sizes and concentrations. On the other hand, agricultural energy crop digesters tested for comparison only had isolated particles, suggesting that plastics are entering fertilizers through improperly sorted compost waste. Samples tested had low levels of plastic, with a maximum of around 150 microplastic particles per kilogram found.

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Plastics Are Everywhere Now

There are six different bins to divide your recycling into in Germany. 317.7 million metric tons of waste were recycled in 2015. They are the worldwide leaders in refining personal recycling systems. Now they’re finding microplastics in organic fertilizers, a scary proposition.

We know that plastics like BPA and BPS disrupt the endocrine system and cause other health issues, but we still don’t know how they affect our health. We likely won’t have the full picture until well after it’s too late. Plastic is in our drinking water, the fish eat, and the soil we grow our food in. How soon will we be talking about how much plastic people can safely ingest before something serious occurs?

Related Reading:

• Drinking Bottled Water Means Drinking Microplastics, According To Damning New Study
• Many Hand-me-down Plastic Toys Are Toxic for Kids
• Microplastics in Sea Salt – A Growing Concern

Sources:

• Organic fertilizer as a vehicle for the entry of microplastic into the environment – Science Advances
• Microplastics found in fertilizers being applied to gardens and farmland – Independent
• Germany Gleefully Leads List of World’s Top Recyclers – New York Times