The Best Way to Dispose of Compostable Coffee Cups

We’ve been using our Biopak compostable coffee cups in our shop for nearly six months now. And we love them. We’re thrilled to be able to do just a little bit more for the environment and our planet.

But of course, we’re still often asked the best way to dispose of compostable coffee cups. And it’s a great question! We wrote about what they are, how they are made and their awesome benefits in an earlier blog. But now we want to expand on the best way to dispose of compostable coffee cups.

The Best Way to Dispose of Compostable Coffee Cups

Whether you’re buying your coffee in one of our signature blue Biopak compostable coffee cups, or another variety altogether, it’s important that you dispose of them correctly in order to get their full  benefits.

A Commercial Composting Facility

When a disposable coffee cup is ‘certified compostable’ that means they will completely biodegrade in commercial compost facilities. You simply need to find the closest facility and drop off your cups (just like heading to the tip!). You can find out information about your closest commercial composting facility here at ‘Find a Composter’.

Your Home Composting Bin

Not all compostable packaging is engineered to break down in your home composting bin. And those that aren’t, need to be collected for commercial composting in order to ensure that they are processed correctly to fully breakdown.

Some compostable packaging has been shown to be compostable under home conditions, however. And many Biopak customers have had good success when it comes to home composting their Biopak coffee cups. If you’re going to try composting your compostable coffee cups at home, you will need to make sure you have a well-managed home composting system with the proper mix of green and brown materials, aeration and moistness.

In Your Green Bins

Certified compostable plastics, like our compostable coffee cups, can be disposed of directly in your green waste bins at home. This is a great alternative if you don’t have a home compost bin, or you don’t make enough green waste to keep your home compost bin active. 

And if you don’t have a green bin for organic waste, contact the manufacturer of the product who may have a service to retrieve their products. Biopak, for example, have a free compost service for their compostable products.

With a Council FOGO Service

Food Organics and Garden Organics (FOGO) services have been introduced in some Australian councils, and many more are considering it. With this service you’ll get another bin and the Council organises a weekly collection of food scraps and garden organics which it then turns into compost. If you have a FOGO collection in your area, your compostable packaging, including your coffee cups, can simply be dropped into that bin.

Of course every FOGO program has its own rules, so check what’s the go in your area before adding your compostable coffee cups to the mix.

Ways You Should NOT Dispose of Compostable Coffee Cups

Disposing of your compostable coffee cups isn’t difficult, but many, many people still do it the wrong way. Here are some ways you should not dispose of compostable coffee cups. 

In Landfill

Compostable packaging, like coffee cups, have a lot of benefits over regular disposable coffee cups. But if you just go ahead and toss them into the rubbish bin, you just end up negating those benefits. Organic waste in a landfill releases methane as it breaks down. This is a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

More rubbish in landfills also means we need to create more landfills. And this can lead to more habitat loss for local wildlife and increased groundwater and soil contamination.

In the Recycling Bin

Compostable coffee cups, and other biodegradable packaging, cannot be disposed of in your recycling bin. They simply end up contaminating the plastic and recycling stream. Unfortunately 63% of Australians think it’s OK to do just that.

On the Ground

Littering is never OK, under any circumstances. And despite being ‘compostable’ it simply won’t break down if it’s not in a proper composting system (or at least not for a really, really, really long time). All types of plastic, even compostable materials, that hang around in the environment can cause problems for the local wildlife and will likely end up polluting our oceans and beaches. Not a great result!

Enjoy Your Compostable Coffee Cups Responsibly!

Compostable and biodegradable products are certainly more environmentally friendly… when composted properly. But we have to make a strong effort to keep them out of landfill, out of the environment and out of the recycling stream, or we’re simply creating another form of waste. And we can do better!

Come into our Hornsby store and check out our Biopak coffee cups. Or you can always just order delicious beans from our shop… we don’t mind.