I researched these before buying because I wanted to make sure that I was buying a truly biodegradeable product. Well it turns out this is made from ple which cannot biodegrade in a typical compost pile such as in your backyard. If you throw it out and it ends up in a landfill they say it'll be 100 years or so before it biodegrades. That's not very environmentally friendly to me. I read about it at the Smithsonian magazine website. I'm posting a link that I hope works: smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/plastic.html?c=y&page=1