[LUM#4] Pack green
How can we banish ubiquitous plastic from our food packaging? In Montpellier, researchers are working on new materials that are more environmentally friendly.
Millions of tons of plastic float between two waters in the Pacific Ocean. A vortex of waste covering an area six times the size of France. This "seventh continent"of plastic is slowly degrading, with consequences for the environment that are still poorly understood. And we continue to feed it with every meal... "Three-quarters of food packaging is made of plastic, " explains Nathalie Gontard. "Plastic takes 100 to 200 years to degrade, even though its widespread use only began 50 years ago," says the researcher at the Agropolymers Engineering and Emerging Technologies Laboratory.
To reduce our impact on the planet, she is working on developing new, more environmentally friendly packaging. "These plastics are derived from petroleum chemistry. Replacing them with materials from renewable resources that are biodegradable under natural conditions is a much-anticipated breakthrough in research,"says Nathalie Gontard. Although "bioplastics" already exist, they still pose a major problem: they are made from starch derived from food resources such as wheat, corn, or potatoes. "Starving half the planet so that the other half can consume green products would make no sense,"the researcher points out.
From waste to packaging
What if we imagined packaging made not from food resources but from our waste? This presents a real challenge, as there are significant constraints to overcome: preserving the nutritional and organoleptic qualities of food for as long as possible to limit post-harvest losses, while also demonstrating complete safety for consumers and no impact on the environment.
As part of the European Ecobiocap project coordinated by Nathalie Gontard, researchers took up the challenge and developed a new generation of packaging made from food industry waste. The ingredients in this revolutionary recipe are a polymer produced by fermenting liquid waste from the dairy industry and lignocellulosic fibers obtained by grinding wheat straw. By mixing everything together according to a sophisticated protocol and assembling it using innovative technologies, the researchers have obtained a material that looks just like plastic, but is completely biodegradable.
Circular economy
The resulting tray is perfectly suited for storing fresh fruit and vegetables."Just throw it in the compost with the rest of your food waste," says Nathalie Gontard. It's a real revolution. This innovation paves the way for a circular economy that would operate in a loop and therefore no longer generate waste. "We are creating a sustainable system that respects the planet. We need to think long term," emphasizes the specialist.
These eco-friendly materials now face another obstacle: establishing themselves in the packaging market in place of petrochemical-based plastics. "We need to identify the obstacles we may encounter," explains Nathalie Gontard. "To do this, we have developed a decision-making tool for industry players." Today, only 1% of packaging is biodegradable. "The goal is to achieve zero non-biodegradable packaging."
Packaging means innovation
The primary purpose of packaging is to protect. "It guarantees food safety. Its role is also to create an environment that preserves taste and nutritional qualities," explains Nathalie Gontard. In recent years, technological innovation has played a key role in this mission, with the arrival of "active" and "smart" packaging.
- Active packaging helps slow down food degradation. Oxygen absorbers, for example, are commonly used to reduce oxidation reactions in vitamins and essential fatty acids, thereby extending the shelf life of food and preserving its nutritional qualities. There are also antimicrobial packaging, water absorbers, and CO2 emitters that help preserve food for longer.
- Smart packaging provides real-time information on the condition of food. Smart labels, for example, can detect the presence of pathogenic bacteria. They indicate whether food is still safe to eat without having to rely on often arbitrary use-by dates, which encourage people to throw away products that are still edible. They are the perfect ally in the fight against food waste.
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