Plastics from food waste

Here’s a novel approach to dealing with food waste: turn it into biodegradable plastics. A report on the process of converting cocoa, rice and vegetable waste into biodegradable plastics has been published in the American Chemical Society’s journal Macromolecules.

Attempting to find a simple, cheaper way to transition to environmentally friendly bioplastics, researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology turned to an organic acid that can process cellulose, which is the main building component of plants and also the most abundant polymer in nature.

The researchers mixed the acid with parsley and spinach stems and husks from rice and cocoa pods, and poured the resulting solutions into lab dishes. These solutions formed films that, when tested, showed characteristics similar to those of commercial plastics, ranging from brittle and rigid to soft and stretchable.

“This opens up possibilities for replacing some of the non-degrading polymers with the present bioplastics obtained from agro-waste,” the researchers wrote.

To read the full article, click here.

Waste husks from rice can be transformed into bioplastic. Credit: A. Abrusci - Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia.