Biodegradable fruit based packaging

With an increasing requirement for all aspects of food proce4ssing to be more and more environmentally friendly, it is always worth keeping an eye out for new developments.

A product called Fruitplast has been developed by researchers at the University Sain Malaysia, which could have a long term impact on the packaging industry.

The product is made from the skins of fruits like bananas and rambutans, and is a biodegradable plastic packaging.
The development team were driven by the concept of using a waste material to produce a durable and economical environmentally friendly product. The team believes that the product is around 10 percent cheaper than the commonly used petroleum based packaging materials like polyethylene (PE). Due to it’s raw materials, it will biodegrade within six months.

“Commercial bio-degradable plastic such as polylactic acid (PLA) and polycaprolacton (PCL) that are available in the West are at least eight times as expensive as the petroleum-based, non-biodegradable plastic such as polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP),” said the Team leader Professor Hanafi Ismail. “We have developed a study to produce bio-degradable plastic using waste products from fruits to reduce costs but which can compete with the quality of the commercial plastics that are currently available in the market.”

“This innovation also has huge commercial prospects not only in Malaysia but also world-wide because it is based on the concept of sustainability, is cheap and excellent for the packaging industry,” added Hanafi. “The durability of the plastic also has met the standards that have been determined and if it is not exposed to the elements (soil and weather), Fruitplast can remain in its original condition for up to two years.”

The product won a Gold medal at International Invention, Innovation and Technology Exhibition 2010, recently held in Kuala Lumpur.