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I remember a few years ago when a local "green" grocery store swapped out polypropylene hot food bar containers for cardboard compostable containers. I looked

I remember a few years ago when a local "green" grocery store swapped out polypropylene hot food bar containers for cardboard compostable containers. I looked up the manufacturer of these "compostable" containers and discovered they keep oils out of the cardboard with a PFA coating. PFA-laden compost, just what any gardener would want. /s

ch4s3 2y ago
Yeah any wood pulp based food container is going to have coatings to block oils. and water. You're probably better off with plastic containers.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  An alternative might be silicone coatings. Parchment paper used in cooking uses this. I worry about the impact of that on food cooked against the paper. Silicones can be biodegradable though -- one of the problems with exploiting methane-rich gas from decomposition in landfills is that it includes silicon-containing volatile compounds from decomposition of silicones. If you burn this in a combustion turbine the combustors and turbine blades get coated with glass.
- zug_zug 2y ago
  Is wax paper not a viable substitute?
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    Not in a hot food bar, I think.
  - Arrath 2y ago
    I've read that modern wax paper is indeed just PFAS coated but I haven't looked into the veracity of that.