A great gift for your next party host, these newfangled biodegradable cups made mainly from sugar cane and corn or natural paper fibres biodegrade within 50 days in commercial compost and only take a little longer in landfill. Standard petroleum based plastic cups…uh, they don’t break down.

One particular producer of these cups that we located is Green Shift. A Toronto-based environmental company , Green Shift is producing a series of products being touted to shift society away from polystyrene and other problematic petroleum derived plastics that founder Jennifer Wright calls a “toxic nightmare that should have been banned long ago.”

There are many reasons, including the fact that there is no record in history of the traditional cups ever breaking down in landfill and polystyrene being made with benzene, a known carcinogen…Not to mention the dependency these traditional products have on the petroleum industry and non-renewable resources.

To top it off, those now supplying the new cups report that some are beating the prices of their toxic cousins.Photo credit: GreenPower