If you’re an owner of a business who is conscious about the environment and worried about the impact of packaging, you might be looking into ways to have more environmentally friendly and sustainable packaging options. 

Recycled, flexible, and compostable packaging are all types, and you can look at which ones are best for you, and which ones are good. 

What about compostable packaging? It may seem like a miracle for those who are tired of using the detrimental kinds of packaging supplies. 

Perhaps you hope to have these supplies to make sure that the business is more green. 

But you’re not sure how it works. 

Packaging is something that can seem complex, but we’re here to answer the question of whether or not, you could qualify compostable packaging as truly biodegradable. 

Can you throw it on the ground, and will it degrade? 

No, and that’s something that people get wrong. They think that it’ll magically just go away at the drop of a hat. 

It’s much more complex than just that, and it may seem shocking, but it actually is different that. 

And of course if you’re just doing that, that’s littering, and not good for the environment. Biodegradable packaging works in a different kind of way, and we’ll go over how compostable packaging plays into this. 

Is it Biodegradable 

Yes it totally is, but there are a few caveats to all of this. 

From the environmental standpoints, it can be composted, since it can actually break down. 

But you need to do it in a specific way.  You can just throw it out in the woods and expect it to just break down, because that’s not how it works. 

For it to be properly composted, you have two options. 

Your first, the home compost. This is where you take all of your excess scraps, grinds, and other organic elements, putting them out back, and over time, the microorganisms within this do break it down, and it can actually provide some great soil to grow plants. 

It is something that can work, but not everything can work in a home compost, since it will not always work. Most of it needs to be done via industrial composting, which is done at a facility. 

With industrial composting, this is basically composting done at a facility, and usually, it’s where some stuff is ONLY composted. 

There are industrial composting plants that are specialized in waste management, which offer a lot of compost. They sell it then to stores, businesses, or municipalities, oftentimes at a discounted rate so that they can use it for landscaping means. 

They are large, and it’s similar to the garbage collection and waste management companies that usually do similar management of waste. 

You usually need to have a composting bin or a means to give them the items before you’re totally allowed to compost that stuff. 

They usually are those big old containers that look like recycling bins at home. If you do single stream recycling, this is definitely similar to this. 

You also will only be able to do this f you have a contract with them, so your community needs to have this. If they don’t, then you won’t be able to compost anything. 

So to answer the question fi it’s really biodegradable, the short answer is yes, but it actually involves far more effort than what may be considered to be warranted by many who use it, and some people may not think the efforts are worth it at the end of the day, especially when it comes to packaging supplies.