compostable packaging: will curbside take it?

Two questions hide inside "is this compostable?" — will it break down, and will anyone take it. The first has a laboratory answer. The second is settled by whoever empties your green cart, and the programs below flatly disagree with each other.

what the certification mark actually tested

The Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) is the mark most US programs name, and it "uses ASTM D6400 as the base standard for assessment for all items going through the BPI Certification process," with D6868 and D8410 available for eligible items. The number that matters to a home composter is the temperature it is tested at. BPI's own FAQ: "Disintegration testing is conducted at 58 +/-2° C for up to 84 days for commercial certification and at 25 +/-2° C for up to 180 days for home certification."

58°C is about 136°F, sustained for up to twelve weeks. That is what a managed windrow does and what a backyard bin does for a few days at its core, at best. Certification to the commercial standard says nothing about your pile — and until recently there was no alternative to say it with: BPI's separate home compostable certification only began accepting applications on 1 December 2025, so nearly everything already on a shelf was tested at facility heat.

The mark does carry one thing worth having: BPI-certified products must have "no intentionally-added fluorinated chemicals, a test report showing less than 100 ppm total organic fluorine" — the PFAS limit that plain "eco-friendly" labeling never promises.

will your curbside program take it?

Below are eleven programs, each quoted from its own published list. They are not a national rule and not a ranking — they are here to show how far apart the answers sit, so that "check your local program" reads as the real instruction it is rather than a hedge.

program	certified bags	cups, plates, cutlery, containers
Seattle, WA Seattle Public Utilities	yes Optional, and judged partly by sight: clearly labeled "compostable", and green or brown — a bag in any other color goes on the avoid list.	yes Approved packaging marked "Compostable" is named on the residential cart list, right beside food scraps and yard debris.
Portland, OR City of Portland	limited Paper, paper bags, or BPI-certified compostable bags may line the cart.	no Cups, plates, utensils and take-out containers stay out, certified or not.
San Francisco, CA Recology	yes "B.P.I. Compostable bags" are on the accepted list.	limited Fiber foodware is in, plastic-like foodware is out — the split is the material, not the label.
Los Angeles, CA LA Sanitation & Environment	no No liner of any kind, compostable included — the kitchen pail is tipped into the green bin loose.	no Certified compostable foodware is sent to the trash, while untreated wood, bamboo and natural cork are named as accepted: the test here is the material, not the certificate.
Minneapolis, MN City of Minneapolis	yes Paper bags or BPI-certified compostable bags, with the logo on the box and the bag.	yes BPI-certified plates, cups, bowls, takeout containers and utensils are accepted.
Denver, CO City and County of Denver	limited Only "3-gallon or smaller countertop CMA (Compost Manufacturers Alliance) approved compost bags" and kraft yard-waste bags.	no Food scraps and yard debris only — even paper napkins and pizza boxes are directed elsewhere.
Boulder, CO City of Boulder	limited "Small CMA-approved compostable bags. Bags must be three gallons or smaller."	no Certified foodware goes in the trash here — the city says so in as many words.
Austin, TX Austin Resource Recovery	yes BPI-certified compostable bags or paper bags.	limited Paper foodware is named on the accepted list; compostable plastic foodware is not named at all.
New York, NY NYC Department of Sanitation	yes A liner may be clear plastic, paper or compostable — the liner rule is about keeping the bin clean, not about what composts.	no The bin takes food scraps, food-soiled paper and yard waste; packaging is excluded.
Cambridge, MA City of Cambridge	yes Compostable bags are accepted; the kitchen bin ships with 2.5- to 3-gallon bags.	no Bags yes, packaging no — the same word on the label gets two different answers.
Ann Arbor, MI City of Ann Arbor	no "No - plastic liners are not accepted, even if they are compostable." Paper or no liner at all.	limited Only fiber products carrying CMA-W (field-tested, not lab-only) certification; BPI alone stopped being enough on 1 January 2024.

The most common items in the food & yard waste carts are food scraps (meat, bones, shells, dairy, fish and moldy leftovers), leaves, branches, plants, and approved food packaging that says "Compostable." — and, on the bag page's avoid list, "Bags labels 'degradable' or 'biodegradable,' they break down into small pieces of plastic" and "Bags that are labeled 'Compostable', but are colors other than green or brown."

— Seattle, WA, Seattle Public Utilities — Collection & Disposal: Food & Yard and Seattle Public Utilities — Compostable Bags
NO "compostable" containers, packaging, or other items labeled "compostable," "biodegradable," or "made from plants."

— Portland, OR, City of Portland — Compost: what goes in the bin
Accepted: "Natural fiber-based cups, plates, bowls, utensils (Bamboo, wood, Bagasse)." Unacceptable: "'Compostable' cups, plates, bowls, utensils" and "'Biodegradable' plastic (not labeled 'Compostable')."

— San Francisco, CA, Recology San Francisco — What Goes Where and Recology San Francisco — Compost, Recycle & Landfill carts
Please keep plastic and compostable bags out. — and "Even products certified under standards like ASTM D6400 or BPI may not fully decompose during the composting process used in Los Angeles... you can put compostable utensils, bags, and other biodegradable items in the black bin (trash)." Named on the accepted list, meanwhile: "Natural wood chopsticks (clean, untreated, not lacquered)," "100% natural bamboo (clean, untreated, not coated)" and "Natural corks."

— Los Angeles, CA, LA Sanitation & Environment — Weekly Curbside Green Bin Collection (Organics)
Look for the BPI logo on certified products. Only items with this logo are accepted. — and, on the not-accepted list, "Products labeled 'biodegradable.'"

— Minneapolis, MN, City of Minneapolis — Accepted Organics
Paper products should not go in the green compost carts.

— Denver, CO, City and County of Denver — How to Compost
All compostable packaging and products, including certified compostable utensils, cups, plates and to-go containers [go in the trash].

— Boulder, CO, City of Boulder — Compost Rules FAQ
Accepted: "Paper bags, paper napkins, paper towels, paper plates, paper cups, paper take-out containers and take-out boxes." Not accepted: "Plastic of any kind (bags, bottles, containers, straws, etc.)."

— Austin, TX, Austin Resource Recovery — Residential Curbside Composting Guide
You can line your bin with a clear plastic, paper, or compostable bag to help keep it clean. — and, on the do-not-compost list, "Wrappers, Non-paper packaging, Foam products."

— New York, NY, NYC 311 / Department of Sanitation — Curbside Composting
No containers or packaging – even if it says "compostable."

— Cambridge, MA, City of Cambridge, MA — Curbside Food Waste Pickup
Not accepted: "BPI certified or other 'compostable' plastic like products" and "Bamboo or palm leaf products." Accepted: "CMA-W certified compostable products."

— Ann Arbor, MI, City of Ann Arbor — Compost and City of Ann Arbor — Approved Manufactured Compostable Products

why a program that could take it, doesn't

The refusals are rarely about whether the material composts. They are about what arrives with it. Boulder points at the imitations rather than at the material: "For every certified compostable product, there are several more look-alikes that seem compostable. In truth, they often contain harmful plastics," and "the volume of contamination A1 receives due to misleading labeling and non-compostable look-alikes makes any packaging or product too costly to accept."

Ann Arbor went further and changed which certificate counts. From 1 January 2024 the city accepts "only selected products identified as being certified 'CMA-W', short for Compost Manufacturing Alliance - Windrow, and made of fiber material" — a mark that adds "a field test for compostability, in addition to lab testing." Its stated reason is the same one: compostable plastics "can be nearly indistinguishable from traditional petroleum-based plastics, which leads to traditional plastics in the compost stream and compostable materials in the recycling stream."

Read those two together and the pattern is clear. A certificate travels with the product; a sorting line sees a heap. That gap, not the polymer, is what decides your answer.

Los Angeles draws the same line in the plainest place of all. LASAN keeps every liner out of the green bin — "Please keep plastic and compostable bags out" — and sends certified foodware to the trash, because "even products certified under standards like ASTM D6400 or BPI may not fully decompose during the composting process used in Los Angeles." Its accepted list, on the same page, names "Natural wood chopsticks (clean, untreated, not lacquered)" and "Natural corks." A program can refuse the certificate and still want the material.

the label words that carry legal weight

Two states have written the difference into law, which makes their rules a useful shopping guide anywhere.

Washington bars a producer from selling "a plastic product that is labeled with the term 'biodegradable,' 'degradable,' 'decomposable,' 'oxo-degradable'" (biodegradable mulch film excepted). To be labeled compostable instead, a product must meet ASTM D6400, D6868 or D8410 — or ISO 17088 or EN 13432 — carry "a logo indicating the product has been certified by a recognized third-party independent verification body," and use "green, beige, or brown labeling, color striping, or other green, beige, or brown symbols, colors, tinting, marks, or design patterns."
California requires that "compostable plastic products must meet the requirements of ASTM D6400-19" and coated fiber products ASTM D6868-19, with total organic fluorine under 100 parts per million, and from 30 June 2027 materials allowable under USDA National Organic Program requirements. A compostable bag must show a certification logo, must not display "a chasing arrow resin identification code or recycling type symbol," and must carry the word compostable in green lettering at least one inch high.

So the tells are physical: a certifier's logo, and green or brown coloring on the item itself. An unqualified "biodegradable," with no mark and no standard named, is the phrase to distrust — Portland, Minneapolis and San Francisco all name it on their reject lists.

settling it for your own address, in about a minute

Search your city or hauler's name with "compost accepted items." The list is almost always a page on the program's own site, which is what every row above links to.
Read the bag rule and the packaging rule as two separate answers. In eight of the eleven programs above they differ — Cambridge takes the bag and refuses the container the same word is printed on.
Note which certifier the program names. BPI, CMA and CMA-W are not interchangeable any more, and a program that once said "BPI" may now say something narrower.
If it isn't on the list, it's trash. That is the disappointing answer, and it is still better than adding the contamination the programs are complaining about.

and in a backyard pile?

Lower expectations again. A home pile that never holds facility heat leaves stringy fragments of film and intact cutlery at harvest — the outcome our item pages describe one product at a time. Look for a home-composting mark rather than a commercial one, tear film into strips, and treat anything rigid as a long-term guest.

quick answers

Do certified compostable plastics actually break down?

In the conditions the certificate describes, yes. BPI tests disintegration "at 58 +/-2° C for up to 84 days for commercial certification and at 25 +/-2° C for up to 180 days for home certification" — that first figure is about 136°F held for roughly three months, which is windrow heat, not backyard heat. A certificate is a statement about conditions. It is not a promise that the facility serving your street runs them, or that your hauler wants the material.

My program refuses certified compostable cups. Isn't certification the whole point?

The refusals are usually about sorting, not chemistry. Boulder puts it plainly: "For every certified compostable product, there are several more look-alikes that seem compostable. In truth, they often contain harmful plastics." Ann Arbor made the same point when it stopped accepting BPI-only products in January 2024 — compostable plastics "can be nearly indistinguishable from traditional petroleum-based plastics." BPI itself acknowledges that "making the decision to accept even certified compostable items comes with increased risks of contamination from non-compostable products."

Is a bag labeled "biodegradable" the same as a compostable one?

No, and in some states the word is not even legal on a plastic product. Washington bars producers from selling a plastic product "labeled with the term 'biodegradable,' 'degradable,' 'decomposable,' 'oxo-degradable'" (biodegradable mulch film aside). A "compostable" claim, by contrast, has to be earned: Washington requires ASTM D6400, D6868 or D8410 (or ISO 17088 / EN 13432), a third-party certification logo, and green, beige or brown coloring so sorters can spot it.

My program says no. What do I do with the compostable cup I already have?

It goes in the trash, and that is the honest answer rather than a defeatist one — a compostable cup in a cart that rejects it is exactly the contamination those programs are describing. A backyard pile is not the workaround either, unless the item carries a home-composting mark: BPI only began accepting applications for home compostable certification on 1 December 2025, so almost everything on shelves today was tested at facility temperatures.

sources

Every program rule and standard on this page was read from the source below while its row was written — the first nine programs and the standards in August 2026, Seattle and Los Angeles on 4 September 2026. Programs revise these lists — the link beside each row is there so you can check the current wording rather than trust ours.

How we classify items →