Vegware

Compostable plastic is a material made from renewable materials such as vegetable starch and soy protein. It should be put into your general waste and not your recycling, food waste or garden waste.

In north London, food waste is processed in anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities and mixed food and garden waste goes to in-vessel composting (IVC) facilities. All packaging (compostable liners / compostable plastic / plastic bags) is removed from food and garden waste by ‘de-packaging’ machinery and disposed of. This has to be done because non-compostable items are often put into the food/garden waste when they shouldn’t be, causing contamination. The de-packaging machinery we use is not currently able to distinguish between compostable and non-compostable packaging when removing contaminants.

Compostable plastic also cannot go into your home recycling bin because we do not have the technology to separate it from non-compostable plastic. It would therefore contaminate the other materials.