Green Bio Composites for Food Packaging

Abstract

Petroleum-based synthetic polymers are mostly used for packaging materials for their advantageous features such as flexibility, lightness and transparency. However, the waste caused by the increasing usage has led to serious environmental impacts. There are many packaging products claimed as ‘green’ material in the market but, they are not fully from natural renewable resources. Most biocomposites materials comprised only either the matrix or fiber/filler from natural renewable resources, but still blended with another synthetic compound. Thus, green biocomposites which composed of fully biodegradable natural fibers and biopolymer matrix would be a great alternative. It can be naturally degraded and completely return to the environment safely after usage. The main shortcomings of biopolymer are their inadequate of mechanical and barrier properties in product application. Yet, the embedding reinforcing fibers or fillers would help in improving the final properties of the composites. The intention of this review is to present the latest development of green biocomposites research and its application for food packaging. It is also proposed to provide critical information that covers around properties of green biocomposites, types of available biopolymers and natural fibers, including their manufacturing techniques. Furthermore, the economic circumstances and forthcoming trend of these materials in food packaging industry would also be reviewed

Perspectives on sustainable food packaging:– is bio-based plastics a solution?

“…to light, moisture, water vapor, and oxygen/ other gases), should match the needs of the given food. Thus, the food packaging system must be able to obstruct either moisture gain or loss (depending on the type of food), control the permeation of water vapor, oxygen, carbon dioxide and other volatile compounds and prevent all types of contamination (Salwa et al, 2019).…”

“…For many years petroleum-based polymer materials have been used as plastics packaging, such as polypropylene (PP), polyester (PET), polyethylene (PE) and polystyrene (PS) (Salwa et al, 2019). The production of plastic packaging has increased twentyfold since 1964 and represents the largest application of polymers with 26 % of the total volume.…”

“…Although plastic packaging have been performing successfully in terms of their functionality, the production of petroleum-based plastics releases greenhouse gases (in particular CO 2 ), and in their disposal, due to the lack of collection or proper handling, plastics tend to end up in landfills or become trash on land and water streams and ultimately contaminate the oceans (Geyer et al, 2017;Salwa et al, 2019). Industry is struggling to find a more environmentally friendly way of producing and using plastic.…”

“…In this context, food-packaging producers and food industries have been working towards the use of abundant, low cost, renewable, and biodegradable alternatives to the traditional, nonrenewable petroleum-based resources (Chi et al, 2020), such as the bio-based plastics (Kawashima et al, 2019). They offer the possibility to reduce the use of petroleum resources with potential subsequent reduction of the CO 2 emissions (Salwa et al, 2019).…”

Synthesis of Water Hyacinth/Cassava Starch Composite as An Environmentally Friendly Plastic Solution

“…One of the fillers made from organic materials is natural fiber. Natural fibers can be obtained from plant parts, namely bark/stem, leaves, fruit, grass/vine, and wood [9], [10].…”