Last Updated on June 25, 2024
You’ve probably heard the term “biodegradable plastic” before: But what exactly does that mean?
Well, technically plastic is already biodegradable. Everything is. All biodegradable really means is that it will eventually break down.
However, plastic does not break down in the same way something like an apple or banana would: It breaks up into microplastics and continues to leach into the environment or landfill over time.
On top of this, plastic takes hundreds of years to break down, and when it does, it just turns into microplastics.
In fact, humans have created 8.3 billion metric tons of plastics since large-scale production began in the early 1950s, most of which still reside in landfills or the natural environment. In other words, all the plastic we have used is still here, in one form or another.
Biodegradability is not the ideal: Being compostable is. When you can compost something, that means it will eventually break down (usually in a shorter time span) and become part of the soil. Both virgin and recycled plastic cannot do this.
Therefore, for the sake of clarity, when I refer to “biodegradable plastic” for this post, I am talking about bioplastics, aka, plastics that have compostable elements.
Here’s everything you need to know about biodegradable plastic, if it’s actually sustainable, and what brands are using it.
what is the problem with biodegradable plastics?
The problem with biodegradable plastics is that not all of them are compostable. Some biodegradable plastics are made from a mix of materials both renewable and petrochemical based.
For example, bio-based PET is a polymer that is partly (up to 30%) produced from plant biomass, such as sugar. The rest is made from plastic, which means it will never completely decompose.
It’s important to understand that something can be biodegradable, but not compostable. In other words, yes, it will break down over time, but it will not add any beneficial nutrients to the soil during this process.
Here are a few other issues biodegradable plastics face.
not recyclable
People will sometimes mistake biodegradable plastics for actual plastic and add them into their recycling bins. This is especially true if the material resembles plastic.
Many recycling facilities do not have the right machinery to recycle biodegradable plastics. This means it will often end up in landfills.
limited access to industrial composting
Not everyone has access to industrial composting facilities, which is often what’s needed to break down biodegradable plastic. In situations like this, biodegradable plastics will end up in the trash, or contaminate a recycling bin. This entirely defeats the purpose of it being compostable.
For biodegradable plastics to be sustainable, they must be collected and paired with the right recovery systems, so that the material stays in the loop and out of the environment.
If you don’t have access to industrial composting facilities, Lomi could be a potential solution to this problem. Lomi is a Smart Waste Appliance that can fit on a countertop and breaks down your food scraps (and certain biodegradable plastics) within a few hours using heat, abrasion, and oxygen.
used to make disposables
One last issue with biodegradable plastic is that it can often be treated like a stand-in for plastic. In other words, it can continue to encourage a disposal culture that is not sustainable.
Even if the biodegradable plastic you’re using is compostable, it’s still wasteful to use it just once where a reusable item will do. For example, using a reusable fork in place of a biodegradable plastic fork is the better alternative.
Biodegradable plastic, even when compostable, still requires energy and resources to make. If we treat it like a single-use item, it’s a waste. Instead, we should focus on using bioplastics to make durable products that can be reused (like Pelacase’s phone cases!).
RELATED: 9 Eco Friendly Phone Cases to Protect Your Phone
do biodegradable plastics actually biodegrade?
Yes, biodegradable plastics do actually biodegradable. Technically, everything is biodegradable.
Biodegradation can take anywhere from a few days (for vegetable scraps) to over 500 years (for a plastic bag).
When an object biodegrades, its original composition breaks down into simpler components like biomass, carbon dioxide, and water.
However, biodegradable plastics that have compostable elements can also do more than just break down – they can biodegrade into soil conditioning material (aka compost), which is nutrient-rich and contains no harmful residues.
how long does it take for biodegradable plastic to decompose?
Biodegradable plastics can take three to six months to decompose fully, depending on what they are made from. This is much quicker than plastic, which can take several hundred years to biodegrade into microplastics.
Exactly how long a biodegradable plastic takes to break down depends on multiple factors, such as temperature, amount of moisture present, and the materials used to make it.
However, certain Lomi-approved biodegradable plastics can be broken down in just a few hours using Lomi! Here’s a full list of Lomi approved packaging and products it can break down.
Additionally, here are some bioplastics making waves in the industry for their innovation.
so is biodegradable plastic sustainable?
Yes, biodegradable plastic is sustainable if it has these qualities:
- Is compostable (backyard or industrial)
- You have access to a recovery system (aka, an area to compost it in, like access to industrial compost facilities)
- It’s not just single-use (but rather used to make durable items that will get reused). The few exceptions to this include compostable food scrap bags and compostable Band-Aids, like Patch (for sanitary reasons).
If these conditions are met, biodegradable plastic can be an innovative solution to consider.
What are your thoughts on biodegradable plastic? Let me know in the comments!
The post What is Biodegradable Plastic? Is It Sustainable? appeared first on Going Zero Waste.
Curating a conscious home is a thoughtful process involving much consideration — who made my products, how they were made, and what are they made from — and this guide aims to support you on your journey towards finding ethical and sustainable home decor you truly love.
What is Sustainable Home Decor?
Sustainable home decor includes any home decor that is made in a way that takes into consideration both the makers and the planet. Sustainable home decor will be ethically made using eco-friendly and natural materials. Eco-friendly decor will also be produced using sustainable supply chain practices. This includes using renewable energy and recycled or compostable packaging.
While there are numerous sustainable home decor brands, some of which are featured below, first consider what’s already been made in order to prevent contributing to new waste. Secondhand, used, or DIY home decor options are typically more sustainable than buying new.
What is Ethical and Fair Trade Home Decor?
Ethical and Fair Trade home decor is produced in a way that adheres to Fair Trade standards and is, ideally, Fair Trade Certified. Fair Trade means paying artisans and makers a fair, living wage and providing ethical working conditions. Ethical home decor also includes supporting goods made by artisans using traditional heritage techniques and art forms. Many cultures around the world are at risk of losing their age-old artisanal crafts forever in the age of mass manufacturing.
It’s important to note that sometimes a major brand may use an “eco” fiber while still supporting irresponsible labor practices, and excessive production amounts that inevitably lead to a lot of waste. This is not true sustainability in my mind!
Most artisan-made home decor is ethically produced and directly supports the makers. However, it’s important to check if a brand or marketplace is transparent about their business practices to ensure they are ethical or Fair Trade.
Where Can You Find Sustainable Home Decor?
In terms of environmental sustainability, looking secondhand and vintage is always a great first place to look for sustainable home decor.
But if you’ve scoured those options and haven’t found what you’re looking for and/or if you’re looking to financially support artisans and traditional crafts around the globe, this shopping guide is designed for you. You’ll discover many brands with artfully designed and artisan handmade goods for furnishing any space among this list of decor brands.
All of the brands in this guide use natural and/or recycled fibers and avoid the use of virgin synthetics like polyester; however, some brands do use materials that are not the most environmentally-friendly option on the market, such as conventional cotton.
And of course, I wanted to choose brands that followed slow, thoughtful production practices, prioritizing artisan handmade over factory labor and quality over quantity.
So without further ado, here are my favorite small-batch, artisan-made, and ethical home decor brands.
Note that this guide includes affiliate links — as always, we only curate brands vetted for sustainability that we love (and that we think you’ll love too).
1. Urban Natural
Categories: Accent Pillows, Tabletop, Lighting, Wall Art & Mirrors, Blankets & Throws
Eco-friendly home retailer Urban Natural is on a mission to curate high-quality furniture (and other home goods) built with quality and free of toxic chemicals. Urban Natural carries several sustainable home decor brands, including artisan brands Ethnicraft and Jaipur Living as well as ethically USA-made brands Farmhouse Pottery and East Fork.
2. GOODEE
Categories: Pillows, Lighting, Wall Decor, Planters, Baskets, Blankets, Candles
GOODEE is an ethical marketplace featuring numerous sustainable artisan brands and designers. You’ll find a variety of beautifully crafted home decor goods to suit a wide range of styles. Goodee is a Climate Neutral and B Corp Certified company. They publish an annual impact report so you can easily ensure their business practices align with your values.
Our favorite brands on Goodee are Texidors, Baba Tree, Makaua, and Tensira.
3. Healthier Homes
Categories: Rugs, Lighting, Tabletop, Baskets, Wall Decor & Wallpaper
Founded after years running an award-winning healthy home building firm and publishing a book by the same name (Healthier Homes) this retailer is a go-to online destination for finding non-toxic home goods. The eco-friendly home decor on Healthier Homes is primarily made with natural materials like clay, cotton, seagrass, mango wood, and bamboo,
4. Will & Atlas
Categories: Baskets, Tabletop
Will & Atlas is a women-owned small business making most of their homewares from plant materials like jute, palm leaf, and hogla grass. Their natural fiber baskets are flexile but sturdy built to hold blankets, pillows, laundry, magazines, toys, or just to stand alone as a decor piece. You’ll also find jute coasters and placemats in their tabletop collection.
The brand is committed to ethical practices, partnering with nonprofit fair trade artisan groups in Bangladesh and craftspeople in the U.S. to build long-lasting production relationships.
5. Ten Thousand Villages
Categories: Baskets, Pillows, Throws, Candles, Wall Art, Planters & Vases
Founded 80 years ago, Ten Thousand Villages is the original fair trade store. Throughout the decades, the nonprofit business has continued their commitment to fair wages, safe working conditions, as well as sustainability.
As a founding member of the World Fair Trade Organization, with artisans around the world from under-resourced communities. Most of the products they carry are made from recycled, upcycled, and natural materials.
6. MagicLinen
Categories: Curtains, Kitchen Linens
Linen is an exceptional material for home decor — there’s a reason we say “kitchen linens!” It’s natural, beautiful, and is often high quality.
I purchased a set of linen curtains from Magic Linen one year ago and they remain one of my favorite home decor pieces. The fabric they use meets the OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100, meaning its been tested for harmful substances.
7. Passion Lilie
Categories: Pillow Covers, Table Linens
Passion Lilie is a fair trade fashion and lifestyle brand with ethically made home decor, too. The Fair Trade Verified brand has handwoven cotton blankets, organic cotton kitchen linens, unique ornaments, and hand-dyed throw pillow covers.
Each piece is made by Passion Lilie’s partners in India who pay living wages and ensure a safe working environment. Beyond this, the brand supports efforts to enable artisans to continually develop their skills and creates opportunities for community development.
8. 54kibo
Categories: Throw Pillows, Wall Hangings & Artwork, Mirrors, Baskets, Rugs, Lighting
A destination for modern African artisanal decor, 54kibo curates a stunning selection of ethically made home decor. The pieces on 54kibo are made with time-honored techniques using locally sourced materials with rich histories. The designs are exceptional, but the stories behind them make the pieces beautiful additions to your home beyond the surface.
9. The Citizenry
Categories: Baskets, Planters & Vases, Tabletop, Wall Decor, Mirrors
The Citizenry partners with artisans around the world, ensuring safe conditions, fair wages, and offering grants to their artisan partners so that they can expand their businesses.
Their online collection features small-batch artisan-made home goods made from locally-sourced and natural materials like palm leaves and indigo dyes.
More Sustainable Home Guides:
Sustainable Furniture Brands to Furnish a Conscious Home
Best Eco-Friendly and Zero Waste Kitchen Products
Easy Swaps for a Low Waste, Sustainable Bathroom
The post 9 Beautiful Places to Source Ethical and Eco-Friendly Home Decor appeared first on Conscious Life & Style.
9 Beautiful Places to Source Ethical and Eco-Friendly Home Decor
Take a look at why hemp is heralded as a hero material and discover 14 hemp clothing brands that have tapped into its sustainable potential.
The exploration of fabrics has always been a starting point for sustainable innovation in fashion. After all, fabrics provide tangible proof that change is possible while having a direct impact on the environment in one way or another. Plus fabrics are responsible for an outsized proportion of a fashion brand’s carbon footprint and overall environmental impact, including biodiversity loss and pollution.
So, What is Hemp Fabric?
Hemp is a bast fiber produced from the cannabis sativa plant, where every part of the plant can be utilized for over 25,000 industrial uses including clothing, biofuel, bricks, paper, and textiles.
Contrary to its popular association, hemp is actually the sober sister to marijuana. Unlike its recreational sibling that’s grown for its psychoactive THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) properties, hemp contains less than 0.3% THC, a value that was the driving force behind the legalization of hemp production in the 2018 Farm Bill. So while you can’t really get high from hemp, you can definitely enjoy its material benefits — which are plenty!
What is Hemp Clothing?
The simple answer is that hemp clothes are garments made from hemp fabric! But the important caveat here is that most hemp clothes on the market today are not made from 100% hemp fabric. They are usually blended with other fibers, like cotton.
At this point, hemp fabric manufacturing is not at the scale or technological level that the manufacturing of cotton (the most popular natural material) is, making 100% hemp clothing more expensive to produce. Also, pure hemp fabric is also known to be quite stiff until a couple dozen washes later, so blending it with a fiber like cotton can make it softer and easier to wear on the offset.
100% hemp fiber content clothing does exist, it’s just rare at this point. Though we do think this will change with more sustainable material investment happening in the textiles industry.
Is Hemp Clothing Comfortable?
It depends! The softness of hemp clothing will vary based on how the fabric was produced and if it is blended with other fibers like cotton or lyocell. Pure hemp clothing can be rougher than cotton, but hemp is known to get softer with every wash.
Also, since hemp is a natural bast fiber that comes from the softer parts of the plant’s stalk or stem, it is softer than the coarser leaf fibers.
Can Hemp Clothing Protect From The Sun?
A lesser known benefit of hemp clothing is that it can reportedly even help shield you from harmful UV rays. According to skin cancer research, a fabric’s UPF (Ultraviolet Protection Factor) value is a number that coincides with the fraction of UV rays it allows to pass through and hit your skin — the higher the UPF number, the better the protection.
Research claims that hemp has a UPF of >50 (according to European standards) due to natural pigments and lignin within the fibers, which act as UV absorbers.
Is Hemp Clothing Sustainable?
There are a lot of benefits to hemp clothing. But don’t just take our word for it, we’ve listed some of hemp’s most impressive sustainable qualities below:
1. Hemp is not resource-intensive
Hemp can be grown under a variety of agricultural and ecological conditions and has a capacity to grow rapidly.
Hemp clothing vs. cotton: With a high yield of 250% more fiber than cotton, hemp requires less land to grow, has no need for harmful pesticides or chemicals, and needs as little as 1/3rd of the water compared to conventional cotton. (Though individual use cases may vary based on the region that each of the crops are grown.)
2. Hemp is a restorative plant
Growing hemp can also help contribute to the maintenance of soil quality, courtesy of its anchored roots which prevent soil erosion and nutrient loss.
In fact, research shows that hemp can be used to restore contaminated soils through ‘phytoremediation’ — a process that has proven successful in the early 90s when industrial hemp was planted in some of the polluted Ukrainian regions near the Chernobyl disaster where much of the land was rendered useless. The experiments showed that hemp helped remove radioactive elements from the soil.
3. Hemp can absorb carbon more than other plants
Hem can act as a carbon sink. According to a Cambridge University researcher, a hectare of hemp can absorb between 8-15 tonnes of CO2, giving hemp plants a vital role in reversing carbon emissions.
Impressed yet? Ahead, discover 14 brands that have some of the best takes on this sustainably versatile fiber.
Note that this guide includes affiliates. As always, all brands meet very high standards for sustainability and are brands we love that we think you’ll love too.
Where to Find Sustainable Hemp Clothing
1. Patagonia
Have an outdoor adventure coming up? Run for the hills in some of Patagonia’s functional hemp styles that’ll have you covered no matter what path you set foot on. Whether it’s a jacket, sweatshirt, pair of overalls, or technical pants, these styles are hard-wearing and made to last.
Patagonia stands by hemp as one of its hero fabrics and claims to consciously partner with suppliers that use unique processing techniques to minimize waste. The brand has also created unique performance materials by blending hemp with organic cotton, recycled polyester, and TENCEL
lyocell.
Many of Patagonia’s clothes and gear are sewn at Fair Trade Certified factories that ensure all workers earn a living wage.
Size range: US 0–18
Price: $$-$$$