Plant-based biodegradable packaging

This solution was shared by PRE-LAUNCH RESEARCH TEAM , 14 May 2021

Print date: 20 March 2025 21:32

Description of the innovative solution

Food design Packaging Waste Regulatory protection Tax

Natural biomass biodegradable packaging for food items will replace plastic, which takes years to decompose, by using natural materials instead. Biomass biodegradable packaging can come from all sorts of natural materials. Corn stover, rice hulls, and sugarcane bagasse have all been used to create synthetic polymers for packaging usages. By using biomass biodegradable packaging, a large reduction in single use plastic would occur. The biomass biodegradable packaging options all decompose, generally, within a year after their use. The implications of cutting out materials that take hundreds of years to decompose are widespread and deep.

Primary users

Packaging companies
Urban consumers
Peri-urban consumers
Rural consumers

Dietary impact

Packaging has become inextricably linked to food. A vast majority of food products comes in already packaged containers and plastics. Food that is consumed is turned into human waste but as for the plastic packaging the food arrived in, that will stick around for hundreds of years. While changing the packaging food comes in may not have a profound impact on the nutritional content of the food itself, it will have a profound impact on the world's ability to produce food in the future. Additionally, it may be healthier for food to be stored in biodegradable biomass than it is for it to sit in plastic.

Planetary impact

It is no secret that single use plastic is an issue. By turning to alternative packaging methods, the human race could cut back on an issue that has been plaguing it since the creation of plastic itself. Waste management and landfills are only going to become bigger and bigger issues if we do not turn upstream and begin to catch the issue at its onset. If all of the packaging of the worlds' food was made out of mycelium, for example, then all of packaging would return to the earth in only a year. Plastic sticks around for hundreds if not thousands of years to fully decompose. Switching to biomass biodegradable packaging solutions would be a game changer in terms of human generated waste.

Equity impact

Biomass biodegradable food packaging will have incredible impacts on improving equity. Impoverished communities are normally right on the outskirts of waste management facilities, landfills and harmful factories. Marginalized peoples are those that are at greatest risk in regard to the way that items are disposed and where they are disposed. If the amount of waste generated is limited, then so is the impact that human waste at large, has on the most underrepresented of communities. Biomass biodegradable food packaging will greatly reduce the amount of plastic in landfills and the negative effects that landfills have on the communities living within short distance of the waste centers.

Main concerns

won't catch on, people will think its gross, the aesthetics will deter people, consumer related issues

Supply chain segment

Processing and packaging

Maturity level

Moving to scale

Criteria

Climate mitigation Reducing pollution

SDG target

SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production SDG 15: Life on Land

Context

Urban Peri-urban Rural Marine/Coastal

Examples and additional resources

Real-world examples

See this solution in action in different contexts and settings around the world

RawPac: choose plants, not plastic

Business information

Plant based disposable products made from renewable, lower carbon or recycled materials and can biodegrade completely in under 12 weeks.

United Kingdom

rawpac.co.uk/why-cho...ckaging/

rawpac.co.uk

Shared by IFSS Portal Research Team

Additional resources

Learn more about this solution through studies, articles, business cases, and other information

CPG Company Launches Plant-Based Recyclable PET Packaging

Business case

Review of plant based biodegradable packaging from company Good Natured; discusses how they must meet guidelines from certain overarching organizations like BPF (british plastics federation)

progressivegrocer.com/cpg...ging

Shared by PRE-LAUNCH RESEARCH TEAM

Bioplastic market in South America

Report

Brazil, Argentina and Mexico have the raw materials for bioplastics to exponentially grow with high potential in the markets

mordorintelligence.com/in...try