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Compostable utensils and straws are growing in popularity among coffee shops and food businesses.
The products are advertised as an alternative to traditional plastic straws and are made from plant-based corn, plastic or paper. But those products are not as biodegradable as they seem.
As part of an experiment, said Heather Butler, the owner of a homestead in the Historic Inner East neighborhood in Dayton, put a straw that was advertised as compostable in her bin. But even after two years, the product was still identifiable as a straw.
“Oddly enough, you could still use it as a straw. It wasn't even perforated. It hadn't broken down that much," she said. "The same is true with the disposable, compostable silverware and plates, which again, don't break down as fast as we would like for them.”
Composting is a process that takes unwanted matter like grass clippings, expired fruits or coffee grounds and breaks them down into nutrient-rich fertilizer.
"Compost is all of the materials that were originally living matter that have been decomposing with a mixture of bacteria and fungus, insects and things like that," Butler said. "And it breaks it down into the best fertilizer that Mother Nature could invent. It's essentially mimicking the floor of a forest."
Butler said also uses mushrooms to build soil fertility in her compost bins. Different varietals like oyster mushrooms help leech out toxic metals and substances that can linger in the soil.
"We live in an 1885 built home in a neighborhood of houses that were all built in and around the 1800s. And as such, a lot of these properties have things like asbestos and lead and mercury and all of those things are toxic heavy metals. Well, getting rid of them can be a very expensive process," she said. "Yet if you use mushrooms, mushrooms can naturally digest a lot of these materials, break them down into safe levels and or safe alternative substances as they break them down."
According to Butler, her compost bins are a vital part of their homestead. By using recycling discarded products and composting waste as much as possible, they rarely put trash out for the city to collect with their low-waste lifestyle.
Studies have shown that many compostable silverware and dishes don't break down easily in the landfill, home composters, or out in the environment.
Butler said she her family also found seeds in compostable plates that she worries could transfer invasive species into her soil.
"While I would hope that in the sterilization process, once these plates are made, that they would be no longer viable seeds. There's no real way for me to guarantee that it's not been allowed to be viable," she said. "So now I'm adding these to my compost bin, unknowing if I'm planting something invasive."
She said better alternatives to these products include metal reusable straws or traditional, reusable plates and silverware.
"We use stainless steel because stainless steel is reusable and so there's no waste stream at all. It exists," she said. "I keep a little pouch of them in each of my vehicles so that if I'm traveling, I have them.”
