A new sugar-based polymer made from non-food crops or waste products could be the future of compostable plastic food packaging.
Researchers at Imperial College London have been working on sugars known as lignocellulosic biomass, which come renewable biomass sources such as food or agricultural waste or from non-food crops including fast-growing trees and grasses.
The development team, led by Dr. Charlotte Williams, has been working on finding a viable, ecological alternative to current plastics manufacturing, close to 99% of which is made from fossil fuels. With worldwide production currently exceeds 150 million tons each year, and about seven per cent of global gas and oil reserves being used for plastics manufacture, there is a great need to find a green alternative.
The new polymer is a breakthrough, not only because it is developed using non-food crops, as the use of food crops in plastics production has been a major criticism levelled against other methods of vegetable-based plastic, the production of this new plastic uses a fraction of the water compared to current plastics.
In addition to greener production, the new polymer is made from oxygen-rich sugars, which allow the plastic to absorb water and degrade into harmless products. This means the used plastic will actually be compostable, in contrast to current vegetable-based plastics which must be degraded in a high-temperature industrial facility.
The main application being developed is for use in disposable food packaging, but its properties mean there is a potential for a wide range of uses, including surgical sutures, and medical tissue regeneration.
For further details, see:
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2010/Pages/compostableplastics.aspx