It is entirely possible technically to decompose PLA. It is "poly-lactic acid" and is a fairly straightforward polymer to decompose down to lactic acid which na

It is entirely possible technically to decompose PLA. It is "poly-lactic acid" and is a fairly straightforward polymer to decompose down to lactic acid which naturally degrades. It is legitimate to describe it as "compostable" in that there are a variety of ways to destroy it, including enzymes but I think just high pressure steam will do it. Modern industrial composting processes will destroy it. What's broken is that in places where municipal compost isn't both commonly used and capable of handling the modern process this stuff gets chucked in compost that's capable of nothing more than food scraps or thrown in the recycling where it ruins the entire batch. Compost that can't handle more than food scraps is super common, it's much cheaper and easier to set up than an industrial system. I've seen people chuck this compostable plastic into home compost bins -- that's just not how it works. These containers should not exist anywhere that a city does not have an existing commonly used compost system capable of handling them. Until then this stuff needs to be understood to be trash. It is not recyclable under any circumstances, it's too hard to sort out and throw away. There's very few places that this does more good than harm.