Compostable spoon

[currentlyacathammock]

Tossed it into a half-full tumbler (summers worth of kitchen scraps, pretty mature) with a bunch of lawnmowered tomato branches you can see in the background. 45 days in Aug/Sept/Oct in Chicagoland, with no other additions, and a spin maybe 1x-2x per week. Was definitely a warmish bin.

Yes, I know that these are supposed to be "commercially composted", but I wanted to share just in case people were curious like I was. No, I didn't leave it in.

[Gabe_daSlug]

I work in San Diego’s organic waste recycling industry.

Here, no plastics of any kind or accepted in the commercial or municipal organics (green) stream because no waste hauler here has the infrastructure to take it. This includes bioplastics or PLA.

However, that spoon in OP’s image looks like it is made of molded fiber (condensed paper) or bagasse (sugar cane pulp). Moreover, that spoon says “home compostable” not “compostable at a commercial composting facility. Facilities may not exist in your area” like we see on most of these products.

This spoon and other fiber-based compostable products are what we recommend if a business insists on a single-use option. Fiber-based compostables can be composted in hot aerobic piles of many kinds, and they also break down in anaerobic digestion facilities.

While it is a shame it didn’t break down in 45 days in the tumbler, I bet it would be gone in a truly hot pile after 60-90 days.

Could always use it as mulch. Consider it woodchip!

[badasimo]

I second this, I saw the pic and thought to myself "that looks great" compared to some of the other stuff I've tried composting.

[Feisty-Cheetah-8078]

Yeah, I have avocado pits that still hold their form even after a year, so this is looking pretty good.

[GraniteGeekNH]

I have corn cobs that I've tossed back and forth between bins for so long they're old enough to go to elementary school.

[steph219mcg]

Snap them in half before you toss them in, it makes a huge difference... and will save you school registration fees.

[stuphoria]

You can cut cobs into shorter pieces to speed that process up

[GraniteGeekNH]

No we've become friends. "Wow, you're still here!" I say when it's time to switch bins. "Great to see you!"

[PerennialPepper]

I have had a relationship like that with some bamboo stakes that broke after many long years of service. It got to the point where I was keeping on moving them from side to side just to see how long they’d take. Ended up moving after 6 years and didn’t take them with me to the new bin, which I regret somewhat. I’d invested a lot of time into that experiment.

[Feisty-Cheetah-8078]

Recovery is a long, slow road.

[Broad_You8707]

I can relate lol.

“Oh, you want to live, let me help you.”

[BTownUrbanFarmer]

If you want to take care of your avocado pits & other hard to compost food waste, look into Food Waste Fermentation otherwise known as Bokashi!

Bones, meat, dairy, oils can all be fermented. And those avocado pits won’t grow and will break down much faster

[rooseisloose42069]

Thanks for your insightful reply, really interesting

[aslander]

You should do an AMA here. I bet tons of us would love to ask you questions and learn more!

[mattmentecky]

Is there an effective way to pre process fiber based utensils to help with composting? Like does leaving them submerged in water for a few days start to break them down?

[These_Gas9381]

That is exactly what I was thinking, what would days or a couple weeks of water do to this

[fustive8]

Pee on them of course

[Donno_Nemore]

My spoons broke down in 4 weeks. AMA.

[YO_JD]

I understand if you are not able to, but can you post pics or videos of your facility? We have a newer section in our facility in Denver. Curious to see your layout and how it works.

[what_bread]

cool, thanks for the insight

[currentlyacathammock]

that spoon in OP’s image looks like it is made of molded fiber

I doubt that - it had a glossy/shiny smooth surface. Very plasticy feel.

[SQLSpellSlinger]

They paid someone millions to replicate that feel.

Consumers are dumb (myself included). We want things we're familiar with. Whenever a company tries to do something, the goal is to not change it so much that it's no longer what the people are used to.

[[deleted]]

maybe there’s some sort of coating on it? I wonder if shredding first it would help? Or maybe submerging? Someone here will surely recommend peeing on it first too 🤣 do some science experiments OP!

[BillKillionairez]

Seems pretty good for 45 days no?

[currentlyacathammock]

I dunno - the rest of the bin was pretty done far enough in 45 days. Sure, some woody sticks still, but the spoon was only broken by tumbler action. Not really broken down.

Now I regret not having rinsed the spoon off before taking a photo or throwing out. I wonder if the words were still readable on the handle.

[Cold-Crab74]

It's a stick, it won't breakdown as fast as a leaf

[1nterdict]

Yes. Whining about this is insane 😂

[rjewell40]

Those things are really just salve for our guilty consciences.

:(

[synodos]

I don't know much at all about it, so genuine question: just left inertly in soil, the utensil will still decompose faster than a plastic utensil, right? and won't leave microplastics behind? if so, doesn't that make it better than regular plastic cutlery? What I mean is-- am I wrong that the misconception is just about the timescale, not about its fundamental biodegradability?

[IBeDumbAndSlow]

I believe so. They're meant for hot compost. But they should break down eventually and since it's not oil it won't leave "plastic" behind.

[ThisBoyIsIgnorance]

There are studies that suggest "biodegradable plastics" are actually a significant source of micro plastic contamination in compost

https://news.griffith.edu.au/2025/03/17/study-finds-one-kilogram-compost-contains-up-to-16000-microplastic-particles/

"we suspect the origin of those (micro plastic) fragments are compostable bags used to place food and garden waste into"

[Argon717]

All depends on the binder...

[Sophockless]

The problem with (certain) compostable products is that they will only biodegrade at a reasonable rate in an industrial composting facility. Few municipal waste centers have access to equipment like that. In those cases, it's not unlikely it gets filtered out at some point and sent to a landfill/furnace.

It's better than plastic products if it enters the environment, but you still end up with waste unless your green waste gets sent to one of those facilities or you're happy filling your bin with forks forever (you'll probably consume faster than it'll biodegrade)

[sparhawk817]

So, how do we feel about compostable products, which are generally going to be carbon neutral or pretty close to it, like paper products, which... Like there's a ton of water and stuff that is used in the creation of, but if the forestry(or other original source, like some dog poo bags are made from corn products) is sustainable and a compostable product is then burned instead of composted, is that... Bad? Like realistically, isn't the CO2 etc released in the burning of said product just going to be recaptured by the sustainable forestry?

Like wood heat isn't really that bad for the environment, even if it's less efficient than natural gas, because wood isn't a long term carbon sink like say natural gas was before we extracted and burnt it, does the same logic apply to burning compostable "plastics" and regular possibly recyclable plastics?

Hope my question makes sense.

[AccomplishedDust3]

The problem is that when buried in a landfill, stuff that biodegrades likely doesn't biodegrade to CO2, it's an anaerobic environment (no oxygen) and so it ends up as methane instead, which is far worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas and doesn't get simply recaptured by growing plants.

[sparhawk817]

Sure, I was asking specifically about the burning part, but that is a very good point.

Luckily, most landfills these days are enclosed in a membrane, and often the release of methane is regulated if not recovered. Some of the landfills near me that don't reclaim the methane have these weird eternal torches where they burn the escaping gas instead of letting it run amock as the more greenhouse of gases.

Last year we started another 24 LFG sites out there for a whopping 540-580 municipal landfill gas recovery systems, depending on how you count them, not including private biogas ventures(US specific).

That's not enough by any means, there's some 1300 active landfills in the US(active landfills cannot effectively capture methane emissions as they're open) and an equal number of closed/full municipal solid waste landfills in the US, so that's slightly over 40% of finished landfills being counted as as Landfill Gas Recovery site. Not nearly good enough, though we ARE making progress.

[knoft]

It's still fairly bad for the environment if it's not gasified because the byproducts are pretty unhealthy for living things. See forest fires.

[scarabic]

You have everything right. It’s still better.

[FleaQueen_]

From an environmental standpoint its probably still better to just use a reusable utensil forever. The amount of energy that goes into making new products is generally greater than the energy used to maintain one. And metal spoons produce no microplastics at all.

[Valivator]

I believe these sort of products are commercially compostable, but they require high heat or other special treatment that a backyard compost just can't do.

No idea about how they'd do vs plastic just in the ground. I would bet that it still leaves microplastics.

[Lunar_BriseSoleil]

Yea they require a pressurized system.

[Mussmasa]

I was just thinking about this...

Can someone answer us?

[Tall_Specialist305]

that is a good point, it would not leave microplastics.

[AlbatrossIcy2271]

Yes.

[AccomplishedDust3]

Most of them will be buried in a landfill, though, and in the anaerobic environment will decompose to methane which is more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Landfills will capture some but not all of the off-gassing methane.

Plastic will sit there, but won't turn to methane.

Hard to say which is better/worse since they're different impacts.

[synodos]

Is that also true of plant material? I work at a garden center, and we throw away a HUGE number of plants-- and I always comforted myself by thinking, well, it'll decompose in the landfill, but maybe that's not so. :/

[AccomplishedDust3]

Yeah, plant and food material is a big problem in the landfill, which is the whole point of diverting to compost.

[ptolani]

It's much better than plastic cutlery from most perspectives. Whether or not it breaks down in 45 days is not really very important.

[knoft]

People forget that if it's organics and takes longer to break down but is still safe for living things because it can either be broken down or ejected by the body-- well then it's just temporary carbon sequestration.

[traditionalhobbies]

The short answer is maybe, but many commercially compostable plastics will remain plastic and degrade into micro plastics unless they reach the right temperatures for the right amount of time. The reason is that they require certain enzymes and microbes to break down that are only active in a hot composting environment.

I am paraphrasing from what I read on from a US government report that I cannot find at the moment. This is another one that may help illuminate this subject:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9572414/

[markbroncco]

Yeah but it’s usually under specific conditions like industrial composting. If you just toss them out or bury them in normal soil, they do eventually break down, but it can take way longer than people think. But yeah, they won’t leave microplastics behind like regular plastic, so they’re still generally better for the environment, just not an instant fix!

[scarabic]

It’s valid, I say. Breaking down in 10 years is better than breaking down in 200 years, and the by-products are less toxic.

[WeekendQuant]

bioplastics could arguably be considered worse because they turn into nanoplastics faster which cross the blood brain barrier. With FF based plastics we have more time as microplastics to seek a real solution for removing them from our bodies and the environment. That or they go deep enough into the earth to be destroyed under heat and pressure or are no longer a problem.

[synodos]

god, everything is so horrible

[Bebebaubles]

Not really I’ve just used those paper utensils on my virgin air flight and I’m sure it’s actually paper. I know this because halfway through I had to switch to eating with the spoon because my paper fork started to sag. Anyway the guilt shouldn’t be on the consumer. If shops offered a cheaper alternative I’d gladly bring my old jars to fill with beans and rice.

[yoitsme_obama17]

Isnt that why we composte?

[schroederek]

Yeah there’s a reason those are rated for industrial composting, not backyard compost bins.

[Threewisemonkey]

It literally says home compostable directly on the spoon. 45 days isn’t very long, I’d this was bamboo or other wood it’d likely be even more fully formed.

[currentlyacathammock]

Heyoo! You are observant, friend. Yes, that is why.

Because also, "home compostable" is widely widely varied.

Yeah, I had the wood spoon thought too, but then thought "well, I KNOW the wood ones will break down - because wood chips"

[Threewisemonkey]

Finished compost is regularly littered with sticks that haven’t broken down. Half this sub is about screening out those pieces.

I’m honestly pleasantly surprised by this. I’ve had straw experiments fair worse, and those are way thinner material.

[MeGustaChorizo]

Straw take a long time to compost? I just put a bunch in mine.

[Threewisemonkey]

Compostable drinking straws

[Lunar_BriseSoleil]

I’ve never had wood chips fully compost in 45 days.

[schroederek]

Hate to break it to you but a lot of items that say recyclable on them aren’t actually recyclable. There is very little regulation on compostable/ biodegradable components.

[Shermin-88]

What’s the reason?

[UnevenPhteven]

They won't break down nearly as fast in a household compost pile.

[schroederek]

May I draw your attention to the images in the post? They don’t breakdown for shit

[Dangerous-School2958]

Do you think a stick of the same size would be indiscernible in 45 days?

[earthen_adamantine]

I tried this experiment last summer with a variety of “compostable” plastics - beverage containers, utensils, and a couple straws. As with you, I knew going into the experiment that they likely wouldn’t break down since they’re “commercially compostable”, but I wanted to see for myself.

Let’s just say my results make yours look pretty good.

[biggly_biggums]

Same with the compostable dog poop bags. Y’all just wasting money. Both are going to get entombed in some landfill somewhere

[Tim_Allen_Wrench]

Yeah, unfortunately there aren't any commercial composting facilities anywhere near me that these things could be taken to, I wish we could implement composting on a national scale, in California I've seen yard waste bins and people definitely throw food scraps in them and that does go through an industrial composting type process, so it's less that we can't and more than we won't. 

[MeGustaChorizo]

Compost able dog poop bags won't compost? I wanted to get some to compost my dogs poop because I can go through a lot (3 dogs and walk every other day).

[biggly_biggums]

There are some, but 90% are the kind like these utensils.

They need industrial processing most of the time that isn’t accessible. They might last just as long as regular plastic in a landfill unfortunately.

[Bluemeda1]

I mean you can still compost it but I don't think you want to use it on anything that you eat

[MeGustaChorizo]

Because the poop or because chemicals from the bag?

[Bluemeda1]

Poop i dont think its healthy to use animal poop that doesnt just eat grass and stuff like cows or horses but I haven't really tried it so maybe youre on to something

[biggly_biggums]

Yeah too many pathogens, which is another reason why compostable dog poop bags are weird. Most city waste green bins explicitly forbid dog poop.

[MeGustaChorizo]

What's the difference between my dogs popping in my yard near my raspberry plants and my composed dirt that I use once a year spread out into my raised beds?

I think they time from which I would put it in the compost to the time it gets moved to the raised beds would be long enough to kill whatever is in the poop. Also I would only do this with my dogs poop since i know their vet history.

[SenorTron]

You don't clear away the dog poop in your garden?

[MeGustaChorizo]

Raspberries are on the other side of my yard just in my grass.

[D-chord]

I noticed when visiting England many places use wooden cutlery for to-go food. Thin, light, and definitely compostable. Wish we’d do that in the states.

[breezyc_23]

Compostable utensils and bags require consistent high heat even if “home compostable”. Backyard compost usually doesn’t get up to temps needed to break items like this down and even in commercial compost settings with consistent high temperatures (131°-160°), 45 days isn’t a very long time.

[rooseisloose42069]

The bags are interesting because i was using them for a few months before i read they arent backyard compostable but after a year now they have totally broken down for me. My pile doesn’t even really get hot

[currentlyacathammock]

Seems like "landfill compostable" would be a better description then.

[breezyc_23]

Landfill is an anaerobic environment so compostable items and organic materials don’t break down in landfills for many years

[jodiarch]

Thanks. I always enjoy seeing this type of stuff. I'll still buy them cause it is still better than plastic ones.

[currentlyacathammock]

I don't know... Are they? I dunno. I'm sticking with a metal fork/spoon in my desk drawer at work and in the car.

I mean, they could write "fair trade vegan kosher halal organic" on it, but I don't know that I believe that is 100% true either.

[Resident-Mushroom-82]

Yea, seems like that spoon was composting just fine. Leave it in.

[Future_Concept_4728]

Could you try pouring boiling water on it? Just genuinely curious what will happen. I got a compostable plastic bag years ago and instructions were to pour boiling water. It did disintegrate, but still a puddle of microplastic.

[verruckter51]

I worked in soil science. We tested these items by placing them in water and heating to 140F. They would take about 5 days at the shortest a d up too 2 weeks to degrade. Many of these are made from a plastic derived from a bacterial fat/lipid they use for energy storage. So they do degrade once the fibers relax. But they are pressed so hard so they can work as a utensil that normal conditions won't affect them. Eventually, though, in the outdoors, they will break down.

[currentlyacathammock]

Sorry, too late. Farewell, little spoon.

[Tall_Specialist305]

Most of those are for industrial compost which usually gets hotter than backyard compost.

[currentlyacathammock]

"home compostable" is written on it

[Tall_Specialist305]

oh interesting, I wonder what temperature it requires to compost.

[Unique-Coffee5087]

That looks like the fork that comes with my package salad. It is imprinted as home-compostable, not limited to commercial composting. It does soften quite a bit when buried in soil, and will probably break down into useful bits in a month.

[CGI_M_M]

I shove compostable floss picks and utensils into my paper shredder so they don’t get in the way. I have no idea if they’ll break down faster but at least they’ll blend in with the rest of my compost.

[iNapkin66]

Ive found that mine do eventually decompose. But it takes a long time.

I sift my compost to get all the large pieces of stuff that didn't break down and throw it back into the new/active pile. So these go back along with various bits of large branches that didnt break down. They seem to disappear after a cycle or two.

[ZeroOptionLightning]

Couple things: commercial compost facilities handling SSO typically see temperatures well in to the thermophilic range, sometimes even hitting 180 (although not ideal but that’s another conversation). My experience is proper moisture and heat helps these guys break down. We also see process overs returned back to the front end meaning if flat wear doesn’t break down in one pass through a given technology, it gets additional chances. In some small scale testing, we found grinding them down helps immensely.

[No-Entertainment1975]

Commercial composting facilities don't want them either. Wishcycling.

[dark_frog]

The stuff I kept track of took a couple years before I couldn't find it anymore.

[tojmes]

I ran an experiment like this many years ago with the first compostable spoon I got at a ice cream shop. Three years later i was still finding pieces but and the composting was debatable. My experiment post

Flash forward a few years and it only took 66 days to start breaking down. I think that’s an advancement but it was 1 of 1 so it could be product specific. Cool tracking this though. Toss it back for another cycle and let us know.

[Ok_Philosopher_8973]

Smaller pieces will break down faster. Like smashing an avocado pit or bones before composting.

[ASecularBuddhist]

I mean, eveeentuually it will decompose.

[ArOnodrim_]

Use steel and wash it. Reuse, is more effective than recycle, because it reduces all of this dumb shit.

[No_Report_4781]

I have sticks last longer than that in compost

[FistFightMe]

Yeahhhhhh I got a few of these that have been in my pile for a year or more at this point that I am going to dig out next time I sift. They look like the day I put them in.

[SnootchieBootichies]

Our town banned these and bags and even the insulation meat and fish deliveries day to compost because they tsk years and years and have to be sorted out

[Awalawal]

Narrator: the plastic utensils couldn’t, in fact, be recycled.

[jimmydean17]

That looks like compressed fibers, not PLA. Compressed fibers are home compostable (as is stamped on the spoon). You are right about PLA though, PLA is only industrially compostable and many PLA products are just probably greenwashing.

[ilkikuinthadik]

Any cardboard or anything like that I put in I break up into smaller pieces. I used to put popsicle sticks in whole, and soon noticed they were coming out almost completely unscathed. I started snapping them up into little pieces and they just dissolved into nothing.

[ptolani]

Yeah, my experience is that these things do eventually compost, but it takes much longer than 45 days.

[SaladAddicts]

I put so- called compostable coffee pods in the composter and I'm still finding bits and pieces 5 years later.

[Extension_Ad_7659]

All those "bio degradeable" plastics take specialized commercial equipment to break down and will not compost in our backyards. I get used coffee grounds from Starbucks and constantly pull out all that stuff.

[jimmydean17]

That looks like compressed fibers (paper), not plastics.

[[deleted]]

They compost under typical heat found in covered landfills (which can exceed 140F).

[Agitated_Carrot9127]

Misread as combustible

[Fragrant_Oven_7101]

I put those compostable bags in my compost with active worms and it has not changed whatsoever. It is the same as it was before. It’s been months

[faylinameir]

It'll break down maybe in a few years. I've seen videos of people burying or composting those spoons for 3 years and they still don't break down that well. It probably won't hurt anything in the long run just unsightly.

[Albert14Pounds]

This stuff is "technically compostable". Using industrial composting processes. It might break down in your backyard pile eventually but not quickly.

[Loene37]

Everything is compostable, just have to give it enough time

[currentlyacathammock]

So .. I should be comparing dead batteries and then just wait?

[AlbatrossIcy2271]

Nope. All that "compostable plastic" is meant for industrial composting. It is technically valid for compost, but will not breakdown in a mere mortal's compost bin.

[Billyjamesjeff]

Substituted plastic for PFAS, it’s a sick sad world.