'Biodegradable wipes' in a home composter?

Recently released (in the UK anyway) are 'biodegradable' antibacterial wipes: https://www.dettol.co.uk/dettol-trigger-project/new-surface-wipes/

Any comments on whether they would biodegrade in a home composting bin?

My mother gets through loads of things like this- biodegradable ones that she gives to me to compost has got to be better than landfilling non-bio ones!

Alternatively- any non-disposable versions I could possibly make, though my mother is least-eco person ever and I'm not sure what she would accept, but I'd be willing to try!

No idea on those commercial ones, but what my mom has been doing is taking a paper towel roll , cutting it in half,  removing the cardboard centre, and putting it in a sealed jar with 1 cup of rubbing alcohol and a bit of dish soap. The paper towel wicks up the alcohol solution, so the paper towels dont need to be fully covered, just enough alcohol for the bottom bit to be covered, and then you can centre pull them. An old lysol wipe container might be better than the jar we use, if she had one. We made them for disinfecting surfaces and door knobs but they are surprisingly great for cleaning grimey bathroom surfaces to.

Alternatively- any non-disposable versions I could possibly make

We use 10 -12" squares of muslin folded small and stacked in a wide mouth half pint jar then covered with plain 70% isopropyl alcohol.
For us they work great and when home they get tossed in the wash and sun dried to use over and over again. I don't hem them or anything although there's a little fraying that pinking shears could help.

The jar comes in the house when we do to get refilled for the next outing.  
I don't think it would be a good idea to keep it in a hot car although I don't know if that's dangerous or not?

We only use them when going to the grocery store or some other shopping excursion...usually only one store a trip. They work well for hands and door handles.

Charli, interestingly, the description of the wipeson their website says they are 100% plant fibers, with this addition, "Wipes made from biodegradable fibres*– 100% plant-based fibres

*Wipe fibres will biodegrade under certified commercial or council composting conditions only."

So why are they limiting how they are composting?  Maybe it's no big deal, and they seem safe enough.  But if they take longer than other things in the pile that might be unsightly.  I have a Tough Stuff pile that takes all the thick and thorny and tough stuff, and don't really expect it to be ready very often, but there are some pretty good amounts of compost coming out of it eventually.


Catie and Judith, great ideas!

Cristo Balete wrote:

*Wipe fibres will biodegrade under certified commercial or council composting conditions only."

I did an experiment once on using several ways to "biodegrade" a supposedly biodegradable single use item and failed, so I would be *very* hesitant to add these wipes to my compost. I don't know how some of the "commercial level" composters work, but it may involve shredding everything, and/or particularly high heat. I'd go for some of the suggestions above, although even paper towels sometimes have weird stuff in them - particularly the "extra-strong, won't tear" types.

Would an antibacterial inhibit the bacteria needed to compost the wipes?  And perhaps the rest of the pile?  

I might be inclined to experiment with them, but maybe in their own pile, to see how long it takes.

Looks like these are the composting standards dettol wipes were tested at.

Key tests and Pass / Fail criteria are:

Disintegration – the packaging sample is mixed with organic waste and maintained under test scale composting conditions for 12 weeks after which time no more than 10 % of material fragments are allowed be larger than 2 mm.
Biodegradability - a measure of the actual metabolic, microbial conversion, under composting conditions, of the packaging sample into water, carbon dioxide and new cell biomass.  Within a maximum of 6 months, biodegradation of the test sample must generate an amount of carbon dioxide that is at least 90 % as much as the carbon dioxide given off from the control / reference material.
Absence of any negative effect on the composting process.
Low levels of heavy metals (Potentially Toxic Elements) and no adverse effect of the quality of compost produced. Upper limits, in mg/kg of dry sample, are: zinc 150, copper 50, nickel 25, cadmium 0.5, lead 50, mercury 0.5, chromium 50, molybdenum 1, selenium 0.75, arsenic 5 and fluoride 100.
The composted packaging material must not have adverse effect on the bulk density, pH, salinity (electrical conductivity), volatile solids, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, total magnesium, total potassium and ammonium nitrogen characteristics of the compost.

From:  https://www.bpf.co.uk/topics/standards_for_compostability.aspx

And the meaning of commercial compost indeed seems to be high temperature.

Test performed at 58 °C +/- 2 °C, carbon dioxide at least 90 % compared with control within 6 months (approx 182 days)

I think the wipe material would probably disappear in home compost eventually, HOWEVER Artie Scott raised an excellent point. Is it wise to add antimicrobials to compost?

Well, the disinfectant in dettol wipes seems to be Benzalkonium Chloride.

Ingredients
Per 100g contains 0.52g Benzalkonium Chloride, Contains < 5% of Non-Ionic Surfactants, Disinfectant, Perfume

From: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/303718385

It looks like Benzalkonium Chloride is finding it's way into the emvironment and waterways harming aquatic species and reducing microbial diversity. It's also responsible for creating resistant bacteria. One article overview : Benzalkonium Chlorides: Uses, Regulatory Status, and Microbial Resistance https://aem.asm.org/content/85/13/e00377-19

So I wouldn't put it in my compost, and I wouldn't trust a commercial facility to keep it out of the waterways. I prefer good old (non-antimicrobial) soap and water or alcohol for disinfecting.

Amy Arnett wrote:

So I wouldn't put it in my compost, and I wouldn't trust a commercial facility to keep it out of the waterways. I prefer good old (non-antimicrobial) soap and water or alcohol for disinfecting.

I totally agree - I avoid "antimicrobial" soap whenever possible and feel it should be reserved for special situations such as a sick person trying not to spread the illness to house-mates or hospital situations. My personal belief is that many "microbes" either are symbiotic with us, or at least mean us no harm, and that just as pesticides kill the predatory insects we need to encourage, such soaps kill the good guys and the benign guys while killing the bad guys which can increase resistant microbes just as pesticides do.

To cope with the current, extreme health situation, we take a spray bottle with watered down soap and a pile of flannel cloths with us in the car. We're in a relatively low risk area and have fairly healthy immune systems, so I feel that approach is adequate. If I was in an area where there was a known high level of contagions (hospital emerge waiting rooms for example!) I would upgrade my system appropriately.

That said, the old saying, "the dose makes the poison", may apply: a few wipes in a large hot compost likely will cause little harm and at least keep it out of the waterways! More than the odd ones I'd be inclined to dry and store until I needed to have a fire for some reason and burn them. I generally do that just by putting them in a bucket where the sun will hit, but rainwater isn't likely to get in.

On the upside, compost is considered a bioremediation process, so it can take some really bad stuff and break it down.  When soil is contaminated by some chemicals, if the soil is heavily composted, it cleans it up.

A few wipes in a 3x3 foot/1-meter-by-1-meter pile would probably not be an issue.  If it were a lot of wipes it might slow the process down, but it wouldn't stop it.  

I have actually been working on composting plastic, although I don't put it on food plants, just spread thinly in the landscape where it will keep breaking down, if there is anything left.  I break or cut the plastic up in a bin in the sun, wait sometimes a few months until it breaks into pieces, then put it in an isolated compost pile, and in a fast, hot pile for a few months in the summer it's not there anymore.  I think this beats shipping recyclables by dirty diesel ships to foreign countries.

I live where we have "green bin" curbside pickup.  Wipes are forbidden in the green bins, be they basic baby wipes or disinfecting wipes...although they do take paper towels, tissues, bones, kitchen waste, etc.

I would add to any voices concerned that a biodegradable product might not biodegrade in a home composter.

I am trying some now, those woven paper fibre dish cloths that are supposed to last three to six months before starting to lose bits, at which point it goes into the compost. So far, the best thing that I have noticed is the colonisation of the biodegradable dish cloth by at least one species of fungus that regularly crops up in my composter: enoki. I figure that if one fungus is interested enough to colonise it, maybe that fungus will do well to break it down.

To be honest, I don't even know to what extent enoki can be used for composting; most of my experience composting the hard-to-compost suggest that something aggressive like oysters or maybe wine caps would be preferable.

I want to stress again that this is advice to guide experimentation in your own circumstances, on your own materials, with the fungi you have available. But I would look to fungi to break these down if the home compost process isn't hot enough.

-CK