How Food Waste Can Be Used to Reduce Plastic Pollution
3 methods to make bioplastics
Credit: This article is based on the scientific article “Natural Polymeric Materials: A Solution to Plastic Pollution from the Agro-Food Sector” by Maria Assunta Acquavia and colleagues (Full citation and link available at the end of the article)
Plastic pollution is one of today’s environmental concerns. Although plastic makes our lives easier, it is hard to dispose of. It ends up in landfills, in oceans, or on the ground. And plastic is designed to last long, taking hundreds of years to decompose naturally. Most of us do not reuse plastic materials, so they pile up in the environment.
Luckily, solutions exist, so that plastics don’t pile up. One of these solutions is using biodegradable plastic (learn more about whether biodegradable plastic is really biodegradable). Another solution is using bioplastics that are made of biomass instead of crude oil. Biomass is any kind of biological material, including food waste.
The advantage of using food leftovers or agricultural waste is that this can be used to make a useful product, instead of it going to landfill or to a compost bin. Another advantage is that greenhouse gas emissions from decomposing food waste is solved. And when this plastic does end up in the environment, it can…
