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Comment by singron | Hacker News Reader

Aren't pizza boxes already compostable? What was going on? I would have loved to seen the investor pitches and board meetings.

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On their own they are compostable, but after usage they are drenched in oil and other stuff, which makes it impossible to recycle them, and harder to compost in a regular unprepared setting. So maybe their aim was to make them compostable for any private customer or unprepared garbage companies?

You can generally compost food-soiled paper products, though I expect the cardboard used in pizza boxes wouldn't break down easily in a home or vermiculture composter. Commercial or municipal compost service providers should be able to handle a pizza box just fine. E.g., the Seattle municipal compost program lists pizza boxes as one of the top 5 things you should be putting in your compost bin: https://www.seattle.gov/utilities/your-services/collection-a...

oh, come on, a bit of oil is perfectly fine in the garbage/compost, a few moments ago (figuratively speaking) it was still a sunflower-seed or an olive, both of which are fine to throw into the compost and degrade fine on their own if they fall onto the groud.

Because olive or sunflower oil are the only oils that get onto a pizzabox? Said noone who has ever actually seen a pizza.

Wait is this really an issue? It’s not like it’s some petroleum product, it’s always some kind of vegetable oil, right?

Animal fats also compost reasonably fine. I think most come from cheese that is milk fats or from meats. But none of those should be any issue either.

Reasonably fine for large scale/municipal composting. Last time I checked there was a lack of strong consensus on whether animal fat always composts well in someone's backyard composter, so YMMV. But the reply was really poking fun at the idea that pizza fat (outside of strict vegan pizza I guess) is exclusively plant based.

It is when you order one with cheese. Or with pepperoni. Bacon. Sausage. Etc. Etc.

It is no longer the case that pizza boxes are not recyclable. Paper Mills all over the country have no problem recycling them even with grease and cheese on them. Some localities haven't updated their guidelines so please check yours and let people know.

https://www.afandpa.org/news/2021/lets-set-record-straight-p... https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/yes-you-can-recycle-your-p...

Source on pizza oil making cardboard uncompostable?

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