What Does Biodegradable Mean?
Biodegradable refers to a product breaking down into natural elements, carbon dioxide, and water vapor by organisms like bacteria and fungi. Technically, just about everything is biodegradable, although it will take hundreds of thousands of years for most things to biodegrade. Here are some benefits of biodegradable products:
Biodegradable products break down much faster than other types of products.
These types of products break down into carbon dioxide, water vapor, and organic material, which isn't harmful to the environment.
Typically, these products are made from sustainable materials and plant by-products, such as corn starch or sugarcane.
Why Biodegradable Products Shouldn't Go to Landfills
While biodegradable products are generally an eco-friendly option for restaurants, there are some downsides as well. When biodegradable products are dumped into landfills, which happen when they're thrown into the trash, they often become buried. Beneficial bacteria cannot survive buried underneath that trash because there is very little oxygen.
As a result, the biodegradable products break down anaerobically, meaning without oxygen, which creates methane, a greenhouse gas that is bad for the environment. Some landfills collect methane that is produced in their landfills and use it to create electricity, but most do not.
Studies have shown that the actual rate of gas production in a landfill is a function of waste composition (organic content), age (or time since placement), climate variables, moisture content, particle size, compaction and buffering capacity. LFG mainly consists of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and numerous trace components. Methane is the second most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas after CO2 and is responsible for approximately 40% of global warming over the past 150 years. Further, for the past 25 years, global anthropogenic methane emissions have exceeded those from natural sources. Emissions from landfill sites account for 30% of the total anthropogenic methane emissions in Europe, 34% of those in the US, and 10% of anthropogenic methane emissions worldwide. Landfill gas emissions are one of the largest anthropogenic sources of methane especially because of food waste. Globally, if food waste couple be represented as its own country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the U.S. It has become important to reduce food waste related emissions by distinguishing between wastes arising at two different stages in the food system: pre-consumer waste (from the manufacturing, processing, distribution and retailing of food) and consumer waste (arising in households, after purchase). A distinction is also made between two different types of emission; embedded emissions (generated during the production of food that is wasted) and waste disposal (from the processes of disposing waste food)
How to Dispose of Biodegradable Products
Because biodegradable products in landfills can create harmful methane, it is better to dispose of them in a commercial compost heap or to send them to a recycling plant. You can also check if there is a biogas plant in your area, which uses biodegradable products to create methane which they then use to generate electricity.
Indranil Roy
13th Aug 2020
Acknowledgement:
Wikipedia
Eco-Friendly Tips by Richard Traylor
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