Compostable Labeling: Let’s Get It Standard and Right
Print this Article | Send to Colleague
More than a dozen bills were filed in statehouses last year requiring compostables in some form or another to replace single-use packaging, and all bills had different definitions, standards and descriptions for proper labeling.
This is one of the biggest problems compost manufacturers and collection companies face: uneven labeling across the country. First, lack of consistent labeling opens the door for consumer confusion, and second, it allows for “bad actors”—those who want to pretend they are packaging or producing compostable materials by taking advantage of confusing labeling.
We are working to stop that.
With a workgroup of experts in the field, co-hosted by the Biodegradable Products Institute, and with input from both the composting industry, the compostables (resin manufacturers, converters and brands) and the Compost Manufacturing Alliance, we are digging deep into what is meant when products say “compostable” and how to keep companies, knowingly or unknowingly, from mislabeling their products.
The goal now is to wrap up the task force’s work, which began in August, in October, with guidelines that will be turned into template legislation, similar to the first Compostable Labelling Bill Template generated by USCC’s Compostable Products Task Force in 2012. That document has been “eclipsed” as the industry has developed by work in California and Washington, but it inspired those bills as well as legislation passed in Maryland and Minnesota. The group has also been using the BPI Labelling Guidelines issued in 2020, as a guiding framework.
We hope our work will make things more clear for consumers, provide consequences for those labeling improperly, and will cut down on “look alike” products entering upstream of compost facilities.
The workgroup members are:
Solange Ackrill, Club Coffee; Marisa DeDomenicis, Earth Matter; Lynn Dyer, Pactiv Evergreen; Neil Edgar, Edgar Associates; Matt Cotton, Integrated Waste Management; Scott Gamble, Waste Management; Megan Jorgensen, EcoProducts; Kate Kurtz, City of Seattle; Leslie Rodgers, Atlas Organics; Sridevi Narayan-Sarathi, Pepsico; Renata Neri, Chick Fil-A; Susan Thoman, Compost Manufacturing Alliance; and Bob Yost, A1 Organics. Staff to the workgroup are Linda Norris-Waldt, USCC; and Alex Truelove, BPI.
