You ask: If my waste is sent to landfill, should I buy biodegradable materials?
photo: Doug Bakers/flick
“you ask” is a series by Columbia Climate School experts addressing readers’ questions about science and sustainability. Today, we’re talking about trash Steven CohenDirector of the Earth Institute’s Sustainable Policy and Management Research Program.
Cohen is an expert in sustainable cities, waste management and environmental policy. He helped us answer the following question from one of our readers:
Is it good for the environment to use biodegradable single-use plates and cutlery and throw them in closed plastic bags along with the trash – which could end up in a landfill?
Discard biodegradable materials
Biodegradable plates, cutlery, and other materials are designed to break down through natural processes, so they can break down into the soil without leaving any toxins behind.
Much of the trash used to be biodegradable in the past, but the plastic revolution changed that — for the worse, Cohen said. Right now, our landfills are full of materials that will never break down. For example, if you throw a computer keyboard in the trash, that thing isn’t going anywhere for a long, long time.
“So any biodegradable material is better than non-biodegradable material,” he said.
In addition, millions of metric tons of plastic waste have entered the ocean, threatening ecosystems and marine life.
So whether or not your biodegradable fork is sealed in a trash bag is a much better solution than adding another piece of plastic.
A better option is to use reusable cutlery instead of disposable items, but modern life doesn’t always give us that option.
The future of trash
The amount of garbage on our planet is the real problem.
The population of our planet keeps growing – the amount of things we use (and the amount of garbage we throw away) also grows, but the amount on the planet remains the same. So, our landfills are only getting more and more crowded with garbage. And, landfill prices will only continue to rise—unless we get creative with our waste.
That’s already a big problem, Cohen said. In places like New York City, there is so little room for trash that a lot of it has to be shipped to places like Virginia and Mississippi.
The ideal future for our waste is to move away from our current model of extracting materials from the earth, producing products and creating waste. Instead, Cohen explained, we should shift to a kind of “Circular Economy”, in which waste is eliminated, resources are reused and recycled, and more nature is regenerated.
If landfills were built to support this model, they would use artificial intelligence and automation to sort waste so materials could be reused, and the waste could be mined for natural resources, Cohen said. The task of sorting waste involves too many toxic substances — and too much time-consuming work — for humans to accomplish, but technology may offer great solutions to these problems.
The system will sort products such as paper, wood and plastic for reuse, repair, remanufacturing and recycling, and extract natural materials that can be reused or returned to the earth. For example, extracting nitrogen from food waste and turning it into fertilizer on farms.
“We need to end the linear model of extracting, using and discarding resources,” Cohen said. “This will help shut down production and consumption systems.”
With eight billion people on the planet, finding better ways to manage waste and reuse it will be key to developing environmentally sustainable cities, he said.
The real value of biodegradable materials (and all individual climate action)
It’s the intent of using biodegradable materials that really matters, Cohen said.
“The thought process is important,” he explained. “It makes you think about recycling, waste and the waste you produce. All these techniques and ideas teach you about the planet, its limits and your relationship to it.”
Using biodegradable materials means you value the planet, and it may make you think about other ways you can help protect it.
That’s what really matters – whatever happens to your fork in the trash.
Emily Halnon is a freelance writer living in Eugene, Oregon.
