What do recyclable, biodegradable and compostable mean?
What does recyclable mean?
Recyclable means something can be reprocessed into its original form and repurposed so it can be used again.
Glass, steel and aluminium can all be recycled infinitely without losing any quality.
For more information, please see our glass, steel and aluminium fact sheets here.
Paper, card and cardboard can be recycled between four and seven times.
New paper has long paper fibres. Each time paper is recycled, the paper fibres get shorter and shorter and paper becomes weaker. There comes a point when paper fibres are too short to withstand another recycling.
For more information, please see our paper, card and cartons fact sheet here.
Plastic can generally be recycled between two and three times.
Thermoplastics are plastics that can be remelted and remoulded into new products, and therefore recycled. These plastics have long polymers/chains of atoms. Each time these plastics are recycled, these polymer chains shorten to the point they cannot be recycled.
For more information, please see our plastic fact sheet here.
What does biodegradable really mean?
If something is biodegradable it means that the product or item can naturally break down within the environment with the help of bacteria, other organisms and the weather. Biodegradable is not the same as compostable.
This term can be misleading, as most things will eventually biodegrade, and many of those things that do biodegrade in our environment, can cause harm and pollute the environment.
The term ‘biodegradable’, although often applied to a range of many different materials, can be unclear. A biodegradable item may biodegrade in some environments, and not in others, and different items biodegrade in different time frames, with different outcomes. An apple, could biodegrade in less than a month, and could be beneficial to the environment, whilst a disposable coffee cup could take up to thirty years but the small pieces of product contain microplastics which are harmful to the environment. They can affect eco-systems and many birds, animals and sea creatures may mistake these plastics as food.
If plastic is termed biodegradable, it can’t be recycled in a domestic collection and should not be placed in a home or work recycling bin. It may look and feel the same as conventional plastic, but its chemical make-up is different and it can’t be reprocessed using the same technology as conventional plastics.
Biodegradable plastics are not the same as bioplastics (see below). Biodegradable plastics are made from traditional oil-based (petrochemical) plastics with additives, which accelerate the plastics breaking down in the presence of light and oxygen. (Moisture and heat also help the process.)
As biodegradable plastics are made from conventional (petrochemical) plastics, they won’t always biodegrade/break down into harmless, non-toxic substances, and may often leave a toxic residue. This means they are not always suitable for composting. They cannot be added to garden waste collections as many garden waste composting processes don’t use intense heat/are processed outside, and the toxic residues from biodegradable plastics would contaminate the compost.
So, how do I recycle biodegradable plastics? Many cafes and workplaces that use biodegradable products will have special collection bins. If you do not have access to this sort of collection, these items need to be placed in your general waste (black) bin.
So, why are there biodegradable products if they are so hard to recycle?
Biodegradable products were introduced to minimise the impact on landfills, as biodegradable products would break down more quickly and therefore take up less space once they had broken down.
However, many companies and local authorities now use energy recovery instead of sending non-recyclable items to landfill.
In Herefordshire and Worcestershire most of our black bin non-recyclable waste is processed at EnviRecover, our Energy from Waste (EfW) Plant, in Hartlebury. More information can be found here: and our EfW fact sheet is here:
What exactly are bio-plastics?
Bio-plastics are plastics made from plant-based materials as opposed to oil-based materials. They are produced from the sugars extracted from plants such as sugarcane or wheat. Bio-based plastics do eliminate the use of fossil fuels to make plastic. So, in theory they sound great – making plastics from earth-friendly ingredients ensures they will biodegrade more quickly and they have the added benefit of being more sustainable, being made from renewable plant-based ingredients.
However, all bio-plastics are not equal. Whilst most bio-plastics are generally compostable (in that they break down into harmless materials which don’t pollute the environment) others do not compost completely and may leave toxic residues and some bio-plastics will only bio-degrade at industrial temperatures.
What does compostable really mean?
Compostable means it’s something which will break down completely into non-toxic components that won’t harm the environment, given the right conditions. Compostable is not the same as biodegradable.
These can be natural items, such as an apple, or manufactured items such as a disposable coffee cup.
How these items can be processed after they are no longer needed, differs:
Food items such as apples, egg shells and vegetable peelings can be placed in either a home compost bin, or a food waste collection service if you have one. These items cannot be placed in a garden waste collection service (which generally is processed into compost) due to legislation preventing food waste being included in these collections. (Cooked food leftovers, bones etc. can only be placed in a food waste collection.)
If a product is labelled ‘compostable’, this means it can be composted industrially. Industrial composting takes place at very high temperatures which accelerates the speed at which products compost. (For something to be legally labelled compostable, it has to have been certified to break down in industrial composting facilities within 180 days.)
These products cannot be placed into your home compost bin as they can take several years to compost naturally. They cannot be placed into your brown garden waste collection as the composting process in Herefordshire and Worcestershire takes place outside and not at industrial temperatures and takes 13 weeks/3 months to complete. It can only include garden waste such as plant cuttings and lawn clippings. We shred all collected garden waste which speeds the process however, any compostable products would take longer to compost than 13 weeks. This is why they cannot be included in a domestic garden waste collection.