FAQs

How can this be with millions spent on the promotion of waste reduction and plastic recycling every year? There is a reason: food and packaging contaminate each other, rendering both unrecoverable.

• Plastic packaging is contaminated with food, so can’t be recycled. 
• Food scraps are contaminated with plastic, so can’t be composted.
• So it all ends life in landfill.

It makes sense then to use Compostable Packaging so food scraps & packaging can be composted together, both returning to the earth from where they came, a continuous cycle… the very definition of sustainability.

The traditional way we use resources is ‘linear’ where we – take, use, dump – relying on the assumption we have limitless resources and disposal capacity. The Linear Economy extracts materials from the environment without respect for capacity and after use dumps without accountability or consideration of the consequences. 

This is unsustainable with our finite world, exploiting our environment, creating an escalating global waste crisis and marked by pollution, ecosystem degradation and a dependence on fossil-fuel plastics that persist indefinitely in the environment.

The Circular Economy offers a better way — a restorative model inspired by nature’s own cycles. It replaces the “take–make–waste” paradigm with “make–use–return”.

By using renewable resources and intelligent design, fit for purpose products are created and then after use returned to the earth through composting or biodegradation. In this model, waste becomes a resource for the next cycle. In the Circular Economy, the goal is not simply to recycle more — it is to unmake everything we make.

The key component of the Circular Economy is Compostable Packaging, making it possible to complete the cycle. When food scraps and compostable packaging are collected together, they can be composted as one stream. This approach eliminates the persistent issue of plastic contamination, reduces climate change methane emissions from landfills, and transforms what was once waste into a renewable resource.

Pioneered by BioBag in Scandinavia in 1989. They found that the simple replacement of plastic bin liners with compostable alternatives and the replacement of closed kitchen caddies with ventilated caddies, revolutionised organic waste collection. It made food scrap separation simple, hygienic, scalable and even pleasant. 

Compostable packaging facilitates the full diversion of organics from landfill. This includes green waste, timber, paper and cardboard all of which adds Carbon to the compost quality and structure. Composting returns organics to the earth from where it came, called “Cradle to Cradle rather than “Cradle to Grave”, saving landfill, litter and pollution, enhancing our environment and making zero waste possible.

Compostable packaging is relatively new, so collection infrastructure and commercial composting sites are significantly restricted. Many compostable products still end life in landfill, however, this is inevitable during the transition process and still better than single-use disposable plastic for reasons like:

1. Compostable products include sustainable, renewable resources (plant materials).
2. Purchasing compostable products will increase production quantities, so costs and therefore prices will reduce.
3. Using compostable packaging will increase demand, helping to drive change and better infrastructure.
4. Doing the right thing even when no one is looking demonstrates ‘integrity’. Like ‘playing it forward’ benefits future generations and the future of our planet.

Only compostable packaging enables the full diversion of organics from landfill. However, achieving large-scale impact requires investment in composting infrastructure — an area where progress has been slow, even though this is by far the most effective and lowest cost way to reduce waste.

Under New Zealand’s Waste Minimisation Act 2008, the contestable waste-to-landfill levy was designed to fund such initiatives, yet much of this potential remains unrealised. While millions are spent on plastics recycling programmes there has been little to no funding in composting systems and infrastructure.

With the opportunity to halve landfill volumes, composting can divert food scraps, green waste, compostable packaging and timber building materials. At the same time it also enhance soil fertility and capture carbon. Facilities such as Envirofert in Auckland are proving this domestically, producing high-value compost through an integrated composting and vermiculture cycle. Demand for their compost exceeds supply — clear proof that the model works. Envirofert have been commercially composting our packaging for more than one and a half decades. 

Even basic composting initiatives would make a substantial difference, with low quality compost, simply to divert from landfill. Councils or Government could spread the finish compost on the ground in forests or on public land. Composted materials reduce in volume so much, it would practically disappear. Also, with a 50% reduction in waste to landfill, the life of the landfill would be extended by decades.

Compostable packaging is relatively new, so collection infrastructure and commercial composting sites are significantly restricted. Many compostable products still end life in landfill, however this is inevitable during the transition process and still better than single use disposable plastic for reasons like:

1. Compostable products include sustainable renewable resources (plant materials).
2. Purchasing compostable products will increase production so costs and therefore prices will reduce.
3. Using compostable packaging will increase demand, helping to drive change and better infrastructure.

4. Doing the right thing even when no one is
   looking demonstrates ‘integrity’. Like ‘playing it forward’ benefits future generations and the future of our
   planet.

The in-sink waste processor is sometimes seen as an alternative to composting food scraps. However, this approach wastes valuable organic material and carries a significant environmental footprint. The additional sewage infrastructure required to process this waste is costly for ratepayers, and the separated organic matter is ultimately filtered out at treatment plants and sent to landfill. Meanwhile, the remaining nutrient-rich liquid contributes to pollution in waterways and harbours. For these reasons, in-sink waste processors are banned by many councils and cities worldwide.

Organic material in landfill has severe environmental consequences. When food waste decomposes without oxygen, it releases methane (CH₄) — a greenhouse gas 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO₂). It also creates unstable land and generates toxic leachate that can contaminate soil and water.

The high water content of food scraps leaches through surrounding waste, collecting heavy metals and chemicals. This mixture accumulates as toxic leachate, which modern landfill liners are designed to contain. However, over time these liners can rupture under stress, erosion or seismic activity. The long-term risk of this contamination reaching groundwater and ecosystems poses a serious health hazard.

Organic materials make up about half of all landfill volume. Diverting this material presents an extraordinary opportunity to extend landfill life by decades and dramatically reducing environmental harm. This should be a top priority for Government and Councils.

By contrast, diverting food scraps from landfill prevents these impacts entirely. Proven systems such as the BioBag ventilated caddy enable clean and efficient collection of organic waste and is foundational best practice internationally.

A 2019 Local Government report identified 89 landfills in Auckland and another 110 across the North Island at risk of washout with just a 0.5-metre sea-level rise. Across New Zealand, there are likely hundreds more known and undocumented landfills and hazardous sites.

Historically, many landfills were created by simply filling estuaries or coastal valleys, leaving them vulnerable to flooding and erosion. The Fox River disaster of March 2019 is a stark example — one storm event released decades of waste from an old landfill, spreading debris across 300 km of coastline, a National Park and a Marine Reserve. This area was recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage site, now devastated with 50 years of plastic and toxic rubbish.

Single use plastic recycling, though widely promoted, remains a Wishful Illusion.

The reality is that plastic collections are mixed with many different types of plastic, laminations, labels, food scraps, chemicals, toxins paints and oils and other contaminants. Sorting, separation and cleaning is uneconomic, so any recycling scheme will only last as long as its subsidies, because sorting and processing costs exceed the value of the material recovered. As a result the data for Wish Cycling will continue to show failure. 

There needs to be an ‘end use’ to make recycling work and there is practically no market for contaminated, down cycled, mixed plastic materials, so most will still end life in landfill. Despite the best intentions and the government, council and stakeholder funding over decades, recycling single-use plastic packaging is fantasy.

Even if a subsidised plastic product is recycled, the reality is, this will only be once! So, its end of life is still landfill, litter or pollution. This is not circular, or sustainable, or any solution to the waste crisis.

The Global Plastics Flow – 2018 data shows.

• 13% Recycled
• 38% Landfilled
• 13% Incinerated 
• 36% Litter in fragile ecosystems, soils and the world’s rivers and oceans.

New Zealand is no better. In 2023, approximately 87% of plastic waste (over 300,000 tonnes) went to landfill. Of the 13% collected for recycling, only a small fraction of this would genuinely have been recycled. This demonstrates that after decades of funding and promotion, plastic recycling does not work as a scalable solution.

Over time plastic will break into smaller pieces from exposure to environmental conditions, but it does not biodegrade, it endures indefinitely. This means plastic still ends life in landfill, litter or pollution. Plastic typically carries a static charge, so micro plastics and plastic fragments in the environment attract pollutants, becoming toxic accumulators. These pollutants like dioxins and carcinogens can enter the food chain when consumed, primarily by marine species.

The evidence is clear: the linear economy has passed its limits. Recycling cannot deliver the waste reduction or environmental regeneration the planet needs and incremental improvements are no longer enough.

The transition to a circular economy, built on a foundation of compostable materials and organic recovery, is essential. With initial waste to landfill diversion in the order of 50%, it is not only possible, but the cheapest option and proven internationally.

By choosing compostable packaging, supporting composting infrastructure, and rethinking how we manage waste, we can create a future where nothing is truly thrown away. Like in nature, the growth phase and the biodegradation stage are all done for free. Like in nature, we design to unmake what we make. Like in nature, the waste from one ecosystem is the raw material for another, so nature has no waste. Zero Waste is indeed possible and we can show how this can be done.  

PLA is an amazing new material that performs, competing directly with plastic for many applications. It primarily makes premium quality, food-safe and environmentally friendly packaging. PLA is made from sustainable, renewable resources, derived entirely from plant starch and makes the ONLY compostable and biodegradable crystal-clear containers. ALL other clear containers are made from plastics that end their life as landfill, litter or pollution.

Food scraps decomposing in landfills are the third-largest source of methane emissions in the world (a greenhouse gas 28 x worse than CO2). They create toxic leachate, pollute waterways and aquifers and contribute to unstable land. Diverting food residue from landfill to composting is the single most effective and significant way to reduce landfill, litter and pollution. This creates a valuable soil amendment in the process, which also benefits the environment. The ONLY cost-effective way to do this is to use tools like PLA packaging, compostable bin liners and ventilated caddies. We specialise in these products and systems. Some of the features of PLA include:

• Naturally crystal clear
• Rigid in nature, makes it suitable for many food packaging applications
• Naturally anti-static
• Easily printed.
• Breathable with high gas and water vapour transmission.
• Food contact approved
• PLA products are very heat sensitive; they should not be exposed to a heat source or left in sunlight. They will distort at temperatures exceeding 40 °C, which is easily achieved, for example, in a closed car on a sunny day.
• However, CPLA (Crystallised PLA) is suitable for both hot and cold applications
• Produces no Microplastics. A study conducted by HYDRA Marine Sciences affirms that PLA does not create persistent microplastics in the environment. 

By replacing fossil-based plastic with PLA, the average carbon footprint of packaging is reduced by 73%. If PLA is composted or incinerated, it becomes a truly sustainable, circular economy product, saving landfill, litter and pollution.

The end-of-life options for PLA include physical recycling, commercial composting, incineration or polymer conversion back to PLA. In some cases, incineration is necessary for medical or hazardous waste. This is required where pathogens and toxins need to be destroyed with high temperatures. PLA burns clean and completely without toxic emissions, producing CO2 and H20. This makes PLA a unique and exceptional material and something that plastics cannot do. It also contains high levels of energy, which can be recovered with one of several waste-to-energy technologies.