Why “dirt-to-dirt” is the real circular economy

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We have been talking about recycling for a long time, but there have been very low numbers of recycling happening and very few recyclables being recycled — especially food waste.

Food waste going into landfills poses a major problem for recyclers as it doesn’t mix up with things that aren’t compostable. So how can we change consumer behavior in the recycling process?

In this episode of the Decoding Innovation podcast series, Douglas Horne, CEO and founder of Evanesce, talks to our host Mitali Sharma about compostable packaging as a solution to recycle waste, the outlook of brands toward sustainability, how different industries are pivoting to compostable solutions and why he deems “dirt-to-dirt” as the true circular economy.

Key takeaways:

• On the recycling side, dirt-to-dirt approaches are more sustainable and circular. They begin and end with dirt which is the natural and organic product that we start and end with — in most circular projects.
• A major problem with recycling food waste is the usage of multiple bins. Compostable packaging allows people to put things in a single bin and dispose food waste for composting, which otherwise ends up in landfills.
• There’s a lot of internal packaging for different medical products. Thus, to meet sterilization requirements for packaging materials, the medical industry is also looking for compostable solutions. 

For your convenience, full text transcript of this podcast is also available. Read the transcript.