The oth\u00ader day Tim brought home some food in a con\u00adtain\u00ader that claimed to be made of corn and there\u00adfore com\u00adpostable. I was intrigued by this, since I remem\u00adber going to street parties and Christ\u00admas mar\u00adkets in Ger\u00admany where the dis\u00adpos\u00adable plates were grain-based and even edible (not that people usu\u00adally did eat them) but haven\u2019t seen them here. So I looked into it a bit more.<\/p>\n
The con\u00adtain\u00ader was made out of some\u00adthing called PLA<\/span><\/acronym>, which is made from starch. The label said not to microwave it, which had me puzzled \u2014 isn\u2019t corn safe to microwave? What would hap\u00adpen? Would it melt? I tried microwav\u00ading some water in the con\u00adtain\u00ader and noth\u00ading unto\u00adward happened, so I poked around on the web\u00adsite<\/a> for the com\u00adpany (Nature\u00adWorks LLC<\/span>, a sub\u00adsi\u00addi\u00adary of Car\u00adgill) to find out more.<\/p>\n The web\u00adsite did\u00adn\u2019t give any details that I could find as to why not to microwave the con\u00adtain\u00ader, so I emailed them. And got back a rather mixed reply. Some breath\u00adless mar\u00adket\u00ading prose (new, revolu\u00adtion\u00adary, bridges the gap between nat\u00adur\u00adal and syn\u00adthet\u00adic products<\/em>), the actu\u00adal answer in the middle, a some\u00adwhat odd para\u00adgraph about how all the tech\u00adnic\u00adal info they\u2019re pre\u00adpared to dis\u00adclose is on the web\u00adsite (if the answer to the microwave ques\u00adtion had been there, I would\u00adn\u2019t have emailed them). Any\u00adway, the answer is sup\u00adposedly that PLA<\/span> has a low melt\u00ading point, so the con\u00adtain\u00aders might leak in the microwave. <\/p>\n So if this con\u00adtain\u00ader is com\u00adpostable, where can one com\u00adpost it? The store has a big bin to take them back, but what about the Van\u00adcouver com\u00adpost facil\u00adity? Or indeed my com\u00adpost bin? The cash\u00adier said \u201coh, just throw it in your com\u00adpost bin.\u201d \u201cAre you sure?\u201d \u201cYes, abso\u00adlutely\u201d. Accord\u00ading to the PLA<\/span> bro\u00adchure<\/a>, you need The oth\u00ader day Tim brought home some food in a con\u00adtain\u00ader that claimed to be made of corn and there\u00adfore com\u00adpostable. I was intrigued by this, since I remem\u00adber going to street parties and Christ\u00admas mar\u00adkets in Ger\u00admany where the dis\u00adpos\u00adable plates were grain-based and even edible (not that people usu\u00adally did eat them) but \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cCom\u00adpostable Plastic\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Next Step<\/h5>\n
140\u00c2\u00baF and humid\u00adity between 80% and 90% for exten\u00added peri\u00adods of time<\/quote>. So that rules out my com\u00adpost bin. And the Van\u00adcouver City com\u00adpost facil\u00adity<\/a> as well, unfor\u00adtu\u00adnately, since they use an open win\u00addrow pro\u00adcess. I emailed the rel\u00adev\u00adant people in the Van\u00adcouver City engin\u00adeer\u00ading depart\u00adment, and they poin\u00adted out not only would it not com\u00adpost, if I put the plastic in the yard waste bin, it might encour\u00adage oth\u00ader people to put unsuit\u00adable plastic con\u00adtain\u00aders in there. So it\u2019s back to the store with the con\u00adtain\u00aders; for\u00adtu\u00adnately it\u2019s not a big deal since it\u2019s one of the loc\u00adal stores we shop at anyway. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"