5 June 2010 - 17:16Compostable Corn Cup?

At the Desert Moon Cafe I got a drink in a new kind of plastic cup. It claims to be made of corn and “compostable.”  To me it is indistinguishable from a conventional PETE cup.

Compostable plastic cup, after one week on counter.

Much as I enjoy the idea of drinking my corn syrup from a corn-cob cup, I’m skeptical about this claim. So I decided to test it. Since I also happen to have a PETE cup

The PETE control cup (left) and the compostable cup (right).

PETE cups are recycle code 1 and the compostable cup is type 7, which I think means “other.”

The cup claims to be compostable and is plastic type 7.

I buried the cups in the ground (today, June 4 2010) and will check up on them in a month or so.

Test site with cups inserted. Worms were observed (well, at least one).

Test site after burial. Stone marks the spot.