In a world focused on
dealing with COVID-19, addressing the numerous pressing environmental issues
that are putting our planet and the human race at risk is all the more
relevant.
It certainly makes us
realise how vulnerable we all are and should spur every one of us to tidy up
the way we manage our finite resources. Take global food wastage, whilst some progress has been made the figures
are still terrifying. Currently, it has been estimated that 1.6 billion tonnes of food
is wasted annually. According to World Food Waste one ton of food waste
prevented could save 4.2 tons of CO2 equivalent.
Consumer demand for fresh, convenient and healthy foods that are
nutritious and safe has led to an increased amount of fresh-cut vegetables,
fruits and ready-made convenience foods. These kinds of produce generally have
a short shelf-life due to poor temperature and packaging management.
Even in developed countries with good packaging and temperature
infrastructure, the amount of fresh cut products that are landfilled remains
high. In
developing countries the situation is far worse and a high percentage of food
is wasted between harvest and market due in the main to poor protective
packaging.
In India, where some 40% is wasted before it even reaches the markets,
all packaging is done at the processing stage and most of it traps moisture
causing the food to rapidly deteriorate.
Food spoilage represents an environmental problem as well as an ethical issue.
Being able to increase the shelf-life of food is a key step.
Poor packaging is one of the key components we have
some control over, something that spurred Innovate UK, with the help of the Newton Fund, to back a
British and Indian consortium to find a solution to the problem.
The project started in
September 2017 and trials have now been successfully completed for a unique
breathable film made of compostable polymers and waste starch from India.
Being able to enhance
storage stability of food during transport, even at higher ambient temperatures
is where the consortium focused.
Current solutions such as
PLA film have only proven successful up to a point. PLA is slow to decompose
outside of a controlled environment and most of it still ends up in landfill
where it is estimated to take somewhere between 100 to 1000 years to decompose.
The consortium’s BioFreshPak is an
innovative plastic film that slows ripening and enhances storage stability of
food during transport, even at high temperatures. Its unique blend includes TPS and other room temperature compostable polymers and it has selective humidity and
permeability controls that maintains the food’s freshness and nutrients.
Furthermore this film has the capacity to increase storage-life performance of
specific foods by 2 to 5 days without refrigeration.
Unlike PLA, that relies predominantly on genetically modified corn,
BioFreshPak is produced with
under utilised agri-waste such as second-grade tapioca starch from cassava
processing waste. It is compostable in ambient conditions and breaks down in
less than 180 days.
Reducing food spoilage and therefore waste goes a long way towards
addressing interconnected sustainability challenges, such as climate change,
food security, and natural resource shortages.
As organisations around the world continue to search for game-changing solutions to re-dress the balance, the likes of BioFreshPak could take us closer to our goal of drastically reducing food waste.
The Consortium
Nextek; Brunel University; Greenwich University; Solutions 4 Plastic; Earth Champions Foundation; Manbras Plastronics; MIT WPU; Punjab Agricultural University
