The time it takes a product to biodegrade depends on the conditions of the composting environment. Industrial or commercial compost facilities run at higher temperatures and certification protocol requires materials to biodegrade within six months. Home composts are more variable and depend on external factors such as temperature, humidity and how often they're turned. Home compost certification requires materials to biodegrade within 12 months at a temperature around 30°C. For more information check out our certifications page.

Unlike most plastics, compostable materials are designed to have a shelf-life. They won't spontaneously start composting on the shelf or in your warehouse, but over time compostable polymers weaken and things such as sealing & lamination strength start to deteriorate. In general we give our compostable materials 18 months shelf-life before this starts occurring. However, this is influenced by atmospheric conditions such as heat and humidity; in hot and humid climates this shelf life is reduced. We recommend storing all compostable materials in dry climate controlled conditions as best practice to ensure a prolonged shelf-life.

All of Grounded's compostable films and laminates are certified compostable, including any valves and zippers. For further information please visit our Certifications page.

No they don't. Our materials are certified compostable which means that they've passed thorough biodegradation testing to ensure they completely biodegrade into healthy organic matter.

This is a great question and the answer is nuanced. They don't contain plastic as most people know it but they are made from bioplastic, which is technically a type of plastic. Grounded has a range of bioplastics that are made using our compostable Plantcell™ technology or our recyclable Sugarflex™ films and laminates. For more information on this see our Science page, which breaks these concepts down.

Compostable materials are designed to be composted and unfortunately that means they cannot be mechanically recycled. Although commercial composting systems are not currently widely available on a kerbside bases this is changing rapidly and so too is the rate of home composting. For further reading please see our blog post on Composting vs Recycling.

Generally speaking, compostable materials are not compatible with wet or oily products over a long period. In certain applications they can work for products with short shelf-life requirements (~4-6 weeks).

Composting is an essential part of a functioning circular economy. We've broken down all the basics in our How to Compost blog post.

Yes, for stock orders above 2000 units, we offer volume discounts. Please get in touch via the enquiry form to speak to one of our Account Managers.

Online orders are typically despatched within 24 hours. Depending on the shipping method (courier or bulk freight depending on the size of your order) this can take anywhere from 1-3 days from despatch.