Dive Brief:
- Closed Loop Partners' Center for the Circular Economy marked five years of its Composting Consortium in an impact report on Wednesday. The report highlights research and grant programs supported by the consortium since it began.
- The Composting Consortium most recently supported eight composting projects through a grant program last year. The program largely focused on acceptance of compostable materials, as well as organic waste drop-off sites and an educational outreach campaign.
- The Center for the Circular Economy is the research and innovation arm of Closed Loop Partners. The New York-based investment firm has worked to expand the role of recycling of a wide range of materials, including organic waste, through research and acquisitions.
Dive Insight:
As more states have required the diversion of food and organic materials from disposal, the demand for processing infrastructure has grown. But that demand has also led to new questions about best practices, including surrounding compostable materials and contamination.
The Composting Consortium stepped in to conduct studies on those issues in 2021. The organization launched an 18-month study quantifying contamination and compostable packaging at 10 U.S. composting sites in 2022. The consortium released the results of that study in February 2024, which found that 85% of contamination in finished compost is conventional plastic and that composters spend about 21% of their operating costs removing contamination.
The organization’s research also found that 98% of compostable plastics and 83% of compostable fibers degrade in the composting process. Those findings were again highlighted in the latest impact report.
The consortium has continued to support data collection and sharing on compostable materials. It donated its data to the Compostable Field Testing Program, which operates an open-source disintegration database and related research projects with support from BSIbio Packaging Solutions and The Compost Research & Education Foundation.
More recently, the organization also published a blueprint for municipalities looking to scale organics recycling programs and a knowledge-sharing platform to connect composters with public officials. In addition, the Composting Consortium released a framework for extended producer responsibility for compostable packaging in December.
Over time, the consortium has grown from a focus on research to a focus on policy analysis, strategic partnerships and grantmaking to support compostable packaging implementation, the organization said in a news release.
“Over the last five years, the Composting Consortium helped bring greater clarity to a complex and often fragmented part of the organics landscape,” Caroline Barry, project lead of the Composting Consortium at Closed Loop Partners, said in a statement that highlighted the work of project partners. "Together, we helped build a practical understanding of what it takes for compostable packaging and food scrap recovery to work in practice.
The consortium is backed by a range of partners. At the corporate level, that includes food conglomerates Mars, Pepsico and KraftHeinz, as well as packaging producer Eastman, retailer Target and the Nextgen Consortium. Industry partners include the U.S. Composting Council and the Biodegradable Products Institute, as well as composters like Atlas Organics, Black Earth Compost, CompostNow, Napa Recycling and Veteran Compost.
