Home Bioplastic from Waste Set to Challenge Traditional Plastics in Food & Beverage Packaging by 2025

PHAs are of enormous interest for producing packaging materials because of their high barrier properties towards oxygen permeation, biodegradation versatility, and biocompatibility. 

With growing consumer, governmental and organizational awareness of plastic pollution as a severe threat to our environment, the push for more sustainable materials such as bioplastics has been fast-tracked. A new analysis from FutureBridge uncovers research breakthroughs in polyhydroxyalkanoates – a key bioplastic – which will drive it to become a promising commercial packaging solution for the Food and Beverage industry by 2025.

“Polyhydroxyalkanoates’ (PHAs) physicochemical properties are comparable to conventional plastics, with the added advantage of biodegradability and biocompatibility,” said Sarah Browner, FutureBridge’s Food and Nutrition analyst. “These attributes have driven increased interest from the Food & Beverage industry, which views them as the green polymers of the future.”

However, the broad commercialization of PHAs is still struggling due to their high production cost, resulting in prices that are 3-4 times higher compared to conventional polymers.

“The main reasons for this high cost are the price of high purity substrates, production in discontinuous batch and fed-batch cultivation modes, and the solvents and labor required in their downstream processing.”, said Sarah Browner

FutureBridge’s Q2 2020 report on the scientific and intellectual property landscape in Innovative and Sustainable Packaging Technologies has highlighted an improvement in the competitive position of PHAs.  International patents have spiked 35% over the past five years with a focus on enhancing sustainability and cost-effectiveness through the use of waste materials as a cheap carbon source. The research spotlighted waste feedstock like starch, cellulose, and hemicellulose-deriving materials, plant oils, molasses, whey, and various industrial by-products.

Led by companies like Danimer Scientific, global PHA production capacity will more than triple in the next five years. A key driver of this growth will be the utilization of waste, including from sources like cold-pressing oil.

FutureBridge hosted a webinar on Packaging Innovation in the Food & Beverage Sector to contextualize this material’s application and more. Click here to watch the on-demand webinar.

 

 

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