Grass could replace plastic as a 100% biodegradable and disposable material, especially in take-out packaging. This is the objective of an innovative project (SinProPack), whose mission is to develop a sustainable alternative to the disposable plastics that are currently used for the vast majority of packaging.
“Disposable herb containers have many environmental benefits. The container will be 100% biodegradable, so if someone accidentally drops their container in the wild, it will decompose naturally,” explained Anne Christine Hastrup, lead project coordinator and director. from the center at the Danish Institute of Technology.
Every year Denmark consumes more than 10,000 tonnes of fast food and drink take away packaging. Therefore, replacing 10,000 tons of disposable plastic would reduce carbon emissions by approximately 210,000 tons of CO2.
The project will lay the foundations for a paradigm shift in packaging solutions, as it aims to demonstrate the possibilities of using green biomass for single-use packaging.
What is green biomass?
Green biomass is a fully accessible resource in Denmark, and green biorefining is already of enormous interest in the country because the environmental effects are quite positive.
“After harvesting the grass and extracting the protein for animal feed, we can refine and pulp the fibers from the grass to obtain cellulose, from which we can produce packaging. It is a great way to create added value for biorefining, since that not all grass fiber can necessarily be used as livestock feed , “argues Morten Ambye Jensen, a researcher in the Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering at Aarhus University.
In this project, the researchers will use both grass and clover as sources of fiber . However, scientists will also assess the possibility of using biomass collected from peat (organic material resulting from the decomposition of vegetables) which is usually more fibrous and contains less protein.
Thus, this project aims to demonstrate that it is possible to create 100% biodegradable packaging (using grass fiber as the main element) and that, in addition, it can be commercialized on an industrial scale.
