Scientists Turn Food Waste into Biodegradable Plastic

Scientists Turn Food Waste into Biodegradable Plastic
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New research offers a groundbreaking solution to two major environmental problems by converting discarded food into eco-friendly plastic, Earth.com reported.

Scientists at Binghamton University (SUNY) have developed a promising method to transform food waste into biodegradable plastic. This innovation tackles the staggering amount of food that ends up in landfills, where it produces harmful greenhouse gases, and the growing crisis of plastic pollution.

Unlike current expensive methods that use refined sugars, this approach utilizes waste, potentially lowering the cost of biodegradable plastics. The university’s dining services supplied the food scraps for the experiments, demonstrating a practical waste stream.

This breakthrough not only offers a new purpose for discarded food but also provides a sustainable alternative to traditional plastics that persist in the environment for centuries. The study’s findings were published in the journal Bioresource Technology.