It's not compostable. It's much tastier, cheaper and greener to buy loose cheese from the block or round.

Collect enough of them, and you could make a candle. Or gift them to someone who makes candles. I take my friends' candle scraps and melt them down to make new candles. I'd take something like that to mix in with the rest of the wax.

I bet that, if buried, fungi would ultimately degrade it. The wax in my bamboo canes, when I had bamboo, composted just fine, and it is the same wax.

"wax in my bamboo canes".....what kind of wax would that be and where is it found? I have never encountered wax with bamboo.

Cheese wax is paraffin based. And paraffin is a petroleum based product that is not going to decompose any time soon.

Evidently they use candle wax and other wax to seal the cut ends of bamboo. I forgot to read why. I wonder if beeswax is ever used on cheese. I know it is, actually, but I wonder why you never see it. I made a hard cheese out of kefir once, which I never dared eat, and I dipped it in beeswax.

Plants make waxes too, and all of them will decompose, or else we'd be hip deep in wax after a few million years. However, in a lump it's going to go very slowly because the solubility is low (it will stay in a lump) and only the surface is available to biodeg.

Fungi are amazing organisms, and both fungi and certain bacteria are capable of degrading hydrocarbons (including petroleum-derived ones).

That being said, a piece of cheese wax in the compost will probably look much the same in 6 months. In a practical sense it's not very, ah, practical.

Plant waxes - cuticles - are water soluble. And can and will degrade fairly rapidly. That is a far cry from paraffin based cheese waxes, which are not water soluble and are intended to retain their structure indefinitely. As stated, they will degrade eventually but it is not going to be a rapid process.

Huh. I learn something new every day around here.

Anyone know how bees produce wax? They must produce it themselves as it certainly appears to be a water insoluble parrafin type wax and not composed of water soluble plant waxes that they collect.

Chemist nerd had to look it up. :-D

From Wiki:

The cuticle is composed of an insoluble cuticular membrane impregnated by and covered with soluble waxes. Cutin, a polyester polymer composed of inter-esterified omega hydroxy acids which are cross-linked by ester and epoxide bonds, is the best-known structural component of the cuticular membrane.[3][4] The cuticle can also contain a non-saponifiable hydrocarbon polymer known as Cutan.[5] The cuticular membrane is impregnated with cuticular waxes[6] and covered with epicuticular waxes, which are mixtures of hydrophobic aliphatic compounds, hydrocarbons with chain lengths typically in the range C16 to C36.[7]

Bold text is my highlights. Non-sponifiable and hydrophobic aliphatic sound pretty hydrocarbon-ish. In any case there are clearly soluble ones on the outside of the membrane. You're right as usual! :-D

They convert sugar in the honey into wax, which they scrape off their abdomens, chew and form it into hexagons.

Really? That's amazing. I thought I knew some stuff about bees but not that one.

I'm likely to go down a beeswax rabbit hole now. :-D

Interesting article about how wax is produced. Bees are amazing.

https://www.beeculture.com/a-closer-look-beeswax-wax-glands/

>>They convert sugar in the honey into wax, which they scrape off their abdomens, chew and form it into hexagons.

Do bees have hexagonal teeth? Inquiring minds want to know.

No, their teeth are triangular. They have to go around twice.

That makes a lot of sense.

Which concerns me a little. :-P

So if they go around thrice...aw, they'd likely knock noggins before they got in a nonagon.

tj