"Compostable" is one of the most trusted words in packaging today, and one of the most misunderstood. The confusion does not begin on the shelf. It begins at the moment of purchase, when a buyer reads the word and assumes it means one simple thing, when it can mean several.
A compostable label describes what a product can do in the right conditions. It does not promise what will happen in the real world. A product made for industrial composting, tested to standards like EN 13432 or ASTM D6868, needs a proper facility: high heat, the right moisture, and a site that will accept it. Home composting is different again. If your market lacks these facilities, the product can still end up in landfill, where most of its benefit is lost. We call this the end-of-life gap.
Timelines add to the confusion. Under EN 13432 and ASTM D6868, an industrially compostable product must disintegrate within about 12 weeks (roughly 84 days) and biodegrade by at least 90 percent within six months (180 days). In our own testing the material biodegraded sooner, at around 150 days. Either way, the honest answer is months, not the "few weeks" that marketing sometimes suggests.
We see this gap often in export enquiries. A buyer chooses a product because of a certificate number, then finds their region treats it like normal waste, simply because the right facility is not there. The certificate was genuine; the system to support it was missing. This is a sourcing question, not a product fault, and it can be solved before you buy.Certificates still matter, but a certificate only shows what a material can do in a test. It does not show what a supplier controls day to day: the raw material, the coating, and whether the goods that arrive months later still match the sample you approved.
So what should a foodservice or procurement buyer ask before trusting a green claim?
• Which standard, and for what part? Ask if the certificate covers the whole product or only the base fibre. Coatings and printing are where many claims quietly fail.
• Industrial or home compostable? Find out which, then check that your market has the right facilities.
• PFAS. "Compostable" and "PFAS-free" are two different claims. Ask for both.
• Batch consistency. Ask how the supplier makes sure every production run matches the tested sample, with recent, product-specific documents.
• Traceability. Know what the fibre is and where it comes from. A source you cannot trace is a claim you cannot defend.
None of this means being less ambitious about sustainable packaging. It means asking better questions, so the promise on the box holds true all the way to the end. Honest sourcing is not clever marketing; it is simply doing your homework, and it is what turns a claim into a real result.
Sameer Kulkarni works with Ecofy (Pratishthan Industries Pvt. Ltd.), a molded fibre tableware manufacturer in India that supplies buyers in more than 30 countries. Its certificates and independent test reports are published at ecofy.io/certifications.