There is a good reason why Moving Beans has always been market front runner in sustainable coffee pods. Why not check out the quality of the sustainable product. There is no other coffee company that provides the same coffee quality, all whilst being totally compostable!

We have clearly more articles on coffee, coffee pods and compostable coffee pods under Coffee Pods Review. Other meaningful articles on sustainable coffee pods are e.g. from leading media publishers, or Moving Beans or other sources.

We are typically being asked what bioplastics are, or what is the significance of a product being naturally degradable or compostable? Exists any relationship between bioplastics and biodegradability? How should we customers deal with these products?

In this blog, we attempt to break down these ideas through basic explanations that will hopefully help you better comprehend their significance and be more familiar with the options you are taking as a consumer. Let's go step by step:

BIOPLASTICS.

These are materials that are either originated from biomass (e.g. plants, such as corn or sugarcane) or are naturally degradable; or undoubtedly function both residential or commercial properties. They differ from conventional plastics because the latter are made from fossil oil (fuel). The advantages of using renewable materials to produce bioplastics are: increase in resource performance (e.g. use of biomass for different purposes), decrease of the carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions (those that greatly contribute to environment modification); and conserving fossil resources by gradually replacing them.

BIODEGRADABLE.

Biodegradation is a process - a chemical procedure - throughout which microorganisms that are available in the environment transform materials into natural substances such as water, carbon dioxide, and compost (artificial additives are not needed). The procedure of biodegradation depends on the surrounding environmental conditions (e.g. place or temperature), on the materials involved and on the process itself. This procedure can take brief amount of times (weeks and months) or long periods of time (10s or perhaps centuries).

In other words, plastic products made from biomass (a type of bioplastic) are not always biodegradable. On the other hand, some petrol-based plastics might be biodegradable.

The family of bioplastics can be divided into 3 primary groups:
• bio-based (or partially bio-based) however non-biodegradable plastics (e.g. PE, PP, PET, PTT or TPC-ET);.
• plastics that are both bio-based and biodegradable (e.g. PLA, PHA or PBS);.
• petrol-based plastics that are eco-friendly (e.g. PBAT).

COMPOSTABLE.

Composting is likewise a procedure-- a chemical procedure. In fact, it is the process of biodegradation under aerobic conditions (presence of free oxygen) within a time frame of 6-12 weeks. You need specific conditions of humidity, temperature level and aeration, for microbes, like fungis or germs and their enzymes, to be able to "digest" the chain structure of eco-friendly plastics. The resulting end products are water, co2 and some biomass.

The number and kind of microorganisms is also a crucial component in this process. There are 2 ways to perform this procedure: industrially or home-compost.

Industrially compostable conditions are very specific and they have been specified under the European norm EN 13432 for product packaging items and adopted by the British Standard Institution under BS EN 13432 standard. Only those product packaging products that meet the strict requirements of the EN 13432 requirement are given with the certification of OK-Compost Industrial and can be unambiguously thought about industrially compostable. In practice, this means that you can dispose this product in your natural waste bin for it to be sent out to the closest commercial composting facility.

Home-compostable product packaging rather is not covered under one single widely-known standard but rather within a number of country-based ones. Because the conditions in a home-compost are not that manageable as in the case of an industrial garden compost, this is. Under home-composting condition temperature levels and humidity can vary significantly from place to location, and year on year, not constantly accomplishing the best decay in an affordable timeframe.

Nowadays, nevertheless, society and experts in the field see the requirement for moving into this instructions if we want to become more sustainable. That is why we might see really interesting developments and innovations in this home-composability space in the following years.

One of the companies I truly like is Moving Beans who have been providing compostable coffee pods for many years, with more info under https://www.movingbeans.com. They were one of the first to provide truly aluminium-free Nespresso coffee pods.