{"id":18142,"date":"2016-06-22T12:31:01","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T10:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/?p=18142"},"modified":"2023-06-15T16:35:48","modified_gmt":"2023-06-15T14:35:48","slug":"turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning vegetable scraps into bioplastics to save the environment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Save those food scraps &ndash; they could be your next grocery bag. A new way of&nbsp;<strong>turning vegetable waste directly into bioplastics<\/strong>&nbsp;could make such materials even more environmentally friendly.<\/p>\n<p>  <!--more--> <\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-full wp-image-172\" src=\"http:\/\/talk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/bioplastics-300px.jpg\" alt=\"bioplastics-300px.jpg\" width=\"328\" height=\"251\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Current bioplastics are created by&nbsp;<strong>processing plant material&nbsp;<\/strong>to create short molecules called monomers, which link up to create long polymer molecules that make up plastics. Although the resulting material is&nbsp;<strong>usually biodegradable<\/strong>, making it a greener alternative to regular plastic, the way it is produced has come under criticism.<\/p>\n<p>Making bioplastics takes multiple steps, requiring more energy, and often uses crops that could otherwise be used for food, like corn or potatoes, says&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iit.it\/it\/people\/ilker-bayer\">Ilker Bayer&nbsp;<\/a>at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Genova, Italy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>There may now be a better way. Bayer and his colleagues of the IIT&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iit.it\/research\/lines\/smart-materials\">Smart Material research team <\/a><\/strong>were looking at the process for creating cellophane, which involves passing cellulose, the material that makes up plant cell walls, through multiple acid and alkali baths.<\/p>\n<p>They discovered that&nbsp;<strong>dissolving cellulose from cotton and hemp in trifluoroacetic acid<\/strong>, a common chemical, converted it directly from its naturally crystalline form to an amorphous form suitable for moulding into plastic without the need for any further processing.<\/p>\n<p>Next they tried the process on&nbsp;<strong>vegetable waste products<\/strong>, including rice hulls, cocoa pod husks, spinach and parsley stems from an Italian company that powders vegetables for use in vegetable drinks and coloured pasta.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These are the parts we don&#8217;t want to eat,&#8221; says Bayer. They could all be&nbsp;<strong>easily converted into useful bioplastics<\/strong>, with different properties based on the starting material: rubbery for spinach, but firmer for rice hulls.<\/p>\n<p>The new materials have a&nbsp;<strong>different combination of stiffness and stretchiness&nbsp;<\/strong>compared to both existing bioplastics and traditional plastics. They can also&nbsp;<strong>inherit the properties of the original plant<\/strong>, meaning parsley plastic could have antioxidant properties, or cinnamon plastic could be antibacterial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Save those food scraps &ndash; they could be your next grocery bag. A new way of&nbsp;turning vegetable waste directly into bioplastics&nbsp;could make such materials even more environmentally friendly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":18152,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4704,4553,4552],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-altro-2","category-en-environment","category-en-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Turning vegetable scraps into bioplastics to save the environment - Talk iit<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Turning vegetable scraps into bioplastics to save the environment - Talk iit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Save those food scraps &ndash; they could be your next grocery bag. A new way of&nbsp;turning vegetable waste directly into bioplastics&nbsp;could make such materials even more environmentally friendly.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Talk iit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-06-22T10:31:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-06-15T14:35:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/bioplastics-300px.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"229\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Redazione\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Redazione\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Redazione\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#\/schema\/person\/248a5c4e587564e328149fb77e76a275\"},\"headline\":\"Turning vegetable scraps into bioplastics to save the environment\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-06-22T10:31:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-06-15T14:35:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/\"},\"wordCount\":334,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/bioplastics-300px.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Altro\",\"Environment\",\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/\",\"name\":\"Turning vegetable scraps into bioplastics to save the environment - Talk iit\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/bioplastics-300px.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-06-22T10:31:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-06-15T14:35:48+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/bioplastics-300px.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/bioplastics-300px.jpg\",\"width\":300,\"height\":229},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Turning vegetable scraps into bioplastics to save the environment\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/\",\"name\":\"Talk iit\",\"description\":\"IITalk\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Talk iit\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/opentalk-logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/opentalk-logo.png\",\"width\":802,\"height\":265,\"caption\":\"Talk iit\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#\/schema\/person\/248a5c4e587564e328149fb77e76a275\",\"name\":\"Redazione\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/author\/redazione\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Turning vegetable scraps into bioplastics to save the environment - Talk iit","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Turning vegetable scraps into bioplastics to save the environment - Talk iit","og_description":"Save those food scraps &ndash; they could be your next grocery bag. A new way of&nbsp;turning vegetable waste directly into bioplastics&nbsp;could make such materials even more environmentally friendly.","og_url":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/","og_site_name":"Talk iit","article_published_time":"2016-06-22T10:31:01+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-06-15T14:35:48+00:00","og_image":[{"width":300,"height":229,"url":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/bioplastics-300px.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Redazione","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Redazione","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/"},"author":{"name":"Redazione","@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#\/schema\/person\/248a5c4e587564e328149fb77e76a275"},"headline":"Turning vegetable scraps into bioplastics to save the environment","datePublished":"2016-06-22T10:31:01+00:00","dateModified":"2023-06-15T14:35:48+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/"},"wordCount":334,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/bioplastics-300px.jpg","articleSection":["Altro","Environment","News"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/","url":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/","name":"Turning vegetable scraps into bioplastics to save the environment - Talk iit","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/bioplastics-300px.jpg","datePublished":"2016-06-22T10:31:01+00:00","dateModified":"2023-06-15T14:35:48+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/bioplastics-300px.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/bioplastics-300px.jpg","width":300,"height":229},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/turning-vegetable-scraps-into-bioplastics-to-save-the-environment\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Turning vegetable scraps into bioplastics to save the environment"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#website","url":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/","name":"Talk iit","description":"IITalk","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#organization","name":"Talk iit","url":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/opentalk-logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/opentalk-logo.png","width":802,"height":265,"caption":"Talk iit"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/#\/schema\/person\/248a5c4e587564e328149fb77e76a275","name":"Redazione","url":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/author\/redazione\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18154,"href":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18142\/revisions\/18154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentalk.iit.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}