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Comment by tinus_hn | Hacker News Reader

So the goal should be compostable cups that are actually composted. There might be some arguments against the cups if they are not composted, but if you don’t start with the compostable cups you will never reach the goal of compostable cups that are actually composted.

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Even that isn't certain. Composting results in the emission of greenhouse gases too - most notable methane which is a 25x stronger GHG than CO2. Best-case scenario, it'll decompose into CO2. But then you have to look at the actual product. Plastic coffee cups are really flimsy, and compostable cups seem to be quite a lot sturdier. When it is getting turned into CO2 anyways, it is better to use a cup which uses less overall material - which would mean a plastic one. A similar argument applies to paper packaging: just because you can recycle or compost it, doesn't mean it is actually good for the environment.

The main goal of reducing single-use plastic is to deal with people just throwing it away on the street or in nature, resulting in animals trying to eat it and dying. When it comes to climate change, using plastic and simply incinerating the waste is probably the better option.

Methane SHOULD be easy to capture and it is valuable. mostly as fuel, but still better than putting it into the air.

Or using compostable materials and putting them in the landfill. If you use plants to capture carbon and make stuff out of that carbon, and then bury it in the ground, that has to be the best case scenario for climate change, right?

Even if it's made from CO2, it's not net neutral for GWP perspective.

If you create a cup from plant material and then after use compost it into plant soil again, using the cup is as bad as a plant growing and dying. Growing plants is not bad for the environment.

Taking oil out of the ground, making it into plastic using energy and chemicals and then after use dumping it into a landfill is bad for the environment.

> Composting results in the emission of greenhouse gases too - most notable methane which is a 25x stronger GHG than CO2.

Methane is produced when 'bio' waste breaks down in anearobic environment.

Composting is an aerobic process. So yeah, CO2 produced there. But significantly less harmful than what happens to the same stuff in a landfill.

Although in that case, methane may be captured. Of course never 100%. Perhaps far from it.

Yes, that would help. But the ultimate goal is less single-use cups. Places like Starbucks, McDonald's, etc. are missing a marketing opportunity.

Compostable cups that are sealed away and not composted are literal carbon sequestration. Same with plastics in a landfill, too, FWIW. Better waste collection, and good landfill practice is the best bang for the buck, IMO.

The goal is low emissions. If compostable cups cause more emissions than non-compostable cups at realistic rates of composting, that's what matters; a theoretically better future rarely excuses a worse present.

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