The major use of single use plastics is as packaging. Many such products, particularly film products, are contaminated by the food or other products that they contain and are currently impractical to recycle or they are intended as containers for other waste materials. As a result, most of this is destined for landfills, unfortunately as litter, and increasingly to compost facilities.

Landfill

While disposal is at the bottom of the waste hierarchy, the least desirable way of dealing with once used resources, it remains the most commonly practiced way in virtually every country in the world, including the most developed ones. In The USA, for example, MSW increased from 152 million tons/year in 1980 to 246 million tons/year in 2005 and although the recycling rate tripled, and compost recovery and incineration with energy recovery became major destinations for MSW, the amount of landfilled material remained almost constant at over 130 million tons of new waste added every year. Only 5.6% of plastics in MSW were recovered by recycling in the US and approximately 12.5 million tons of plastic packaging was directed to landfills. Products using EPI technology will degrade in managed landfills thereby aiding their compression and maximizing landfill capacity utilization.

Composting

Standards exist for plastics to be designated as compostable. EPI's TDPA^TM incorporated products do not meet these standards, primarily because they do not biodegrade quickly enough in a compost environment. Nonetheless, operators of a number of managed compost facilities accept bags using this technology as an affordable alternative to generally more expensive technologies that meet the standard requirements. Properly designed bags utilizing TDPA^TM technology disintegrate to meet compost quality requirements and, while they do not biodegrade quickly enough to meet compostable plastics standards, this can be an advantage as they sequester carbon in the soil and contribute to soil structure and fertility.