Countrystyle composts packaging from Olympics

Compostable food packaging from the London 2012 Olympics is being recycled by Kent-based waste management company Countrystyle, letsrecycle.com can reveal.

The London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) confirmed yesterday(August 9th) that the company is composting the material, alongside venue food waste, at its in-vessel composting facility at Ridham in Kent.

The facility is fully compliant with the Animal By-Product Regulations which require waste which contains animal-derived products, such as food waste, to be treated at a high temperature for a set period of time.

But, there is some evidence that the material being collected at the OlympicPark in the composting waste bins may have a level of of non-compostable materials.

Countrystyle is a subcontractor of waste management company SITA UK, which has the overall waste and recycling contract for the Olympics (see letsrecycle.com story). However, both companies said they could not comment on the deal for contractual reasons.

Scale

Compostable packaging is that which biodegrades and disintegrates over a much shorter period of time than conventional packaging. At the Olympics it is being used on a scale never before seen in the UK in a bid to help LOCOG reach its target of recycling 70% of waste and sending zero waste to landfill.

LOCOG has specified that all food packaging products, where not readily recyclable (such as PET), must be certified with European standard EN 13432 for compostability. This means that everything from drinks cups to cutlery is made from compostable carton board and bioplastics and features an orange compostable packaging symbol, indicating that it must be placed in the corresponding orange compostables bins.

A total of 3,300 tonnes of food and food related packaging is expected to arise at the Games, including 17 million pieces of cutlery, and there are 4,000 containers for recycling, composting and residual waste across Olympic venues.

Mater-Bi

The bulk of the food packaging is supplied by specialist London Bio Packaging and uses Mater-Bi biodegradable and compostable plastics produced by Italian firm Novamont. Cutlery, straws, cups and lids are made of this material by two of Novamonts main processing partnes, Ecozema and SEDA.

To ensure that the packaging would break down, it is understood that a sample was sent to the Countrystyle IVC facility before the Games and put through the composting process and it was also checked by the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP).

According to Novamont, every grade of Mater-Bi is different, with the thicker grade used for cutlery taking longer to break down than the thinner film used to line cups. The cutlery disintegrates within three months and biodegrades within six, whereas film can take as little as 2-3 weeks to break down.

Novamonts managing director, Catia Bastioli, said: I admire the far-sightedness and perspicacity LOCOG demonstrated in their programme to make the London Olympics a truly sustainable event, and Novamont is proud to have played a part in this.

Contaminants

Visual inspection of the bins and brief monitoring of the sites at Olympic venues by letsrecycle.com staff has revealed some confusion by visitors over how best to recycle. There also appeared to be a level of contamination which it is thoughtcould cause some problems during the composting process.

Last year, Phil Cumming, sustainability manager for LOCOG, explainedthat compostable food packaging was specified for Olympic venues because food wastewould makeup a large proportion of the waste generated and would need to be composted anyway (see letsrecycle.com story).

A working group, comprising the National Non-Food Crops Centre (NNFCC), WRAP and members of the British Printing Industries Federation (BPIF) Cartons Groups and UK Renewable Packaging Group all helped to draw up the specification for catering packaging, which sponsor McDonalds has also aligned its packaging to.