Two shoots on packaging certifying two very different things, only one of which works in a garden.
The seedling certifies industrial compostability, which needs sustained high temperatures a garden heap never reaches. The home compostable mark certifies the much harder domestic case. An item carrying only the seedling put on a compost heap at home will still be there next year, which is why treating the two as interchangeable matters.
One certifies industrial compostability and the other the much harder domestic case; they are not interchangeable.
Drawn from the visual attributes recorded for each symbol. Only traits the two records disagree about are listed.
| Trait | Seedling logo | Home compostable symbol |
|---|---|---|
| Built from | plants | circles and plants |
| Enclosing border | No enclosing border | Sits inside a border |
| Colour | green | Not colour-specific |
| Symmetry | vertical | none |
| Seedling logo | Home compostable symbol | |
|---|---|---|
| Conditions required | Industrial composting facility | Domestic compost heap |
| Temperature needed | Sustained high heat | Ambient |
| Works in a garden heap | No | Yes |
| Stronger claim | No | Yes — it is the harder standard to meet |
| Relationship (from Symbolwise's records) | Commonly confused with Home compostable symbol — One certifies industrial compostability and the other the much harder domestic case; they are not interchangeable. | Commonly confused with Seedling logo — The seedling logo certifies industrial compostability; this one certifies the harder domestic case, and they are not interchangeable. |
Improved Seedling logo for industrially compostable products
European Bioplastics · retrieved 2026-07-27
Guidelines for the use of the Seedling logo
European Bioplastics · retrieved 2026-07-27
Wikipedia · retrieved 2026-08-01
Tertiary reference. Used for widely-agreed identity, origin and current use, not for contested detail or exact dates.
Wikipedia · retrieved 2026-08-01
Tertiary reference. Used for widely-agreed identity, origin and current use, not for contested detail or exact dates.
Biodegradable is close to meaningless on its own: almost everything degrades eventually, and the claim names no timescale and no conditions. Compostable states both. That gap is why unqualified biodegradability claims are restricted in several jurisdictions, and why a compostable mark is worth more than a biodegradable one.
These route to different places and are not substitutes. The recycling loop means the material can be reprocessed into new material. The Seedling means the item is certified to break down in an industrial composting facility — not in your garden compost, and not in recycling. Composting certified items in the recycling stream contaminates it, and vice versa.
One is certified, the other is a claim anyone can print. The Seedling means EN 13432 compostability verified by an independent certifier. A generic leaf or sprout labelled 'biodegradable' means only that the material will break down eventually — with no defined timeframe, no defined end state, no standard and no verification.
CE covers the European Economic Area; UKCA covers Great Britain. Both are the manufacturer's own declaration that a product meets the requirements applying to it, and for most product categories nobody grants or checks them. Neither is a safety certification or a mark of quality, which is how both are widely read. UKCA's territory is Great Britain rather than the whole United Kingdom, because Northern Ireland follows the EU regime.