Compostable, biodegradable, bio-based, recyclable: reading the labels

The words on a takeout cup mean very different things, and some mean nothing. What each one promises, which certifications back it up, and why PLEET treats plant-based plastic as plastic.

Walk into a restaurant supply store and every cup is green. The language on foodware is where most of the greenwashing in this sector lives, and a restaurant that wants to do the right thing can spend real money on products that end up in the same landfill as the ones they replaced. Here is what the words actually commit to.

Compostable

This is the only one of these words with a test behind it. A product can be certified compostable by the Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) in North America, or under TÜV Austria's OK compost scheme in Europe, which means it has broken down under the conditions of an industrial composting facility within set limits on fluorinated chemicals (PFAS) and heavy metals. BPI lists more than 50,000 certified items in a public catalogue and marks the small subset that also breaks down in a garden compost heap.

Two caveats. "Industrial" is the important word: most certified foodware does not break down in a home bin, a landfill or the sea. And a certificate does not guarantee your local composter will accept the item, which is why the Compost Manufacturing Alliance runs field tests in real facilities and publishes which products its members take.

Biodegradable

Everything is biodegradable eventually. The word carries no standard, no timescale and no test. Treat it as decoration.

Bio-based, plant-based, made from corn

These describe where the material came from, not where it goes. Polylactic acid (PLA), the clear plastic made from corn starch, behaves like any other plastic in a landfill or on a beach, and is a contaminant in most plastic recycling streams. It may be certified compostable, in which case the rule above applies; if it is not, it is a plastic cup with a better story. This is why the Surfrider Foundation's Ocean Friendly Restaurants program and PLEET both treat "no single-use or bio-based plastic" as a single practice: the source of the plastic is not the problem.

Recyclable

Technically true of most plastics and practically true of very few. Beyond Plastics' 2022 analysis put the US plastic recycling rate at between five and six percent, and food-soiled foodware is the least likely of all to be recycled. Aluminium and glass, by contrast, are recycled at scale.

PFAS

Moulded-fibre containers are often treated with fluorinated chemicals to stop grease soaking through. These chemicals persist in the environment and in people, and a container that carries them should not be composted either. BPI's certification limits total fluorine, and both the Surfrider guide and some suppliers now label products "No PFAS". If a supplier cannot say, assume the worst.

The order of preference

Reusable first, for everything served on site and wherever a customer will accept it for takeout. Certified compostable, accepted by a local composter, second. Fibre or aluminium third. Plastic, from any source, last. Surfrider's foodware guide sorts common products into "best choice", "good alternative" and "avoid" on exactly this basis, and its 2026 edition adds a decision matrix for the claims above.