Living
Composting vs recycling
Recycling gets the household attention; food waste gets the landfill methane. For most kitchens, diverting organics is the higher-impact change, and it is the one entirely within your control rather than dependent on distant sorting infrastructure.
Side by side
| Criterion | Composting | Recycling |
|---|---|---|
| What it handles | Food scraps, garden waste and, in industrial systems, compostable packaging. | Paper, glass, metals and a narrow subset of plastics. |
| Climate benefit | Prevents anaerobic methane from landfilled organics — a direct, immediate gain. | Real for aluminium, steel, glass and paper; weak and inconsistent for most plastics. |
| Failure mode | Odour and pests from too much nitrogen and not enough carbon or airflow. | Contaminated loads get rejected wholesale; wish-cycling makes this worse. |
| Control | You can do it at home, in a bin or a bokashi bucket, with no municipal system. | Entirely dependent on local infrastructure and end markets. |
Questions people ask
- Is composting better than recycling?
- They handle different streams, so it is not either/or — but organics are usually the largest and most climate-damaging part of a household bin, and composting is the part you can act on without waiting for policy.
- Can I compost compostable plastics at home?
- Usually not. Most certified compostable packaging requires the sustained high temperatures of an industrial facility and will not break down in a garden bin.