Corn starch packing peanuts

Find out how to reduce and home compost corn starch packing peanuts.

Reduce

Consider using scrunched up newspaper, plain dry popped corn or breaking down old polystyrene packaging for posting fragile items rather than buying new packaging. 

Recycle as home compost

These 'peanut' or 'Wotsit' shaped materials are used to package many fragile items and can be made from compostable natural corn-starch. These look virtually identical to polystyrene packing peanuts but can easily identified by making them wet - the corn-starch variety will begin to dissolve whereas the polystyrene will remain the same.

Corn-starch versions can be home composted - either dissolve in water and add the 'slurry', or bury in the compost pile to dissolve naturally.

Please note - the polystyrene versions unfortunately cannot be recycled. Please place these in a bag and dispose of in your household rubbish bin or at any Suffolk Recycling Centre, in the non-recyclable container.