I Sell a Sustainable Product I Believe in, But My Industry Is Misleading Consumers. Here’s the Truth.

Entrepreneur Media LLC and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some products and services through the links below. I run a bioplastics company, and the truth is that bioplastics is a world where (almost) everything is greenwashing. Companies in this industry regularly make misleading claims — the promises they make are detached from the infrastructure, chemistry and economics that determine whether those promises are kept.

Companies in this space should strive to make bioplastic from waste, invest in composting infrastructure and be an advocate for "no plastic, less plastic, better plastic." I run a bioplastics company. I have spent years telling people our materials can help solve plastic pollution. And I need to tell you that most of what my industry says is, at best, misleading.

I call it misleading not because the science is wrong, but because the promises we make are detached from the infrastructure, the chemistry and the economics that determine whether those promises are kept. This is not easy to write, but entrepreneurs owe their audiences the truth, especially when the truth implicates their own business. So here are the common and lesser-known claims companies in my industry make that paint a blurry picture of half-truths.

When you see "compostable" on a coffee cup or a food container, you probably picture it breaking down in soil somewhere. Maybe in your backyard compost bin. Maybe in a municipal facility down the road.

To understand what actually happens to that "compostable" cup, you have to understand PLA. Polylactic acid is the dominant compostable bioplastic on the market today, and it needs sustained temperatures of 55 to 58°C to break down. Your backyard compost pile never reaches that.

So PLA needs an industrial composting facility with controlled heat, humidity and microbial activity to actually decompose. A 2024 Beyond Plastics report found that of 173 U.S. industrial composters surveyed, only 46 reported accepting compostable packaging. Ten states in the US have zero composting facilities.