Biobased Plastics for Food Packaging

he production of plastics requires a large quantity of petroleum resources and involves the emission of hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 and other gases into the atmosphere. Moreover, about 40% of the total plastics produced are used for short-term appli- cations including packaging, with an additional environmental concern due to inadequate waste management. Consequently, huge amounts of plastic residues are present in terrestrial as well as in aquatic environments, which represent a danger to animal health. All these impacts could be controlled, and mainly mitigated, by producing sustainable, biodegradable and/or biobased plastics, for general as well as for specific applications. The driving force to their commercial adoption is closely linked to the possibility of using biomass feedstocks to produce biobased monomers that can be converted to biobased polymers with excellent versatility and adapt- able chemical structures, with specific properties and functionalities. Since the mid-twentieth century, the polymer industry has used petrochemical-derived resources for their preparation. Global production of plastics has increased from 2 million metric tons (Mt) in 1950 to 380 Mt in 2015. It has been estimated that 8300 Mt of virgin plastics have been produced and as of 2015, approximately 6300 Mt of plastic waste had been generated, around 9% of which had been recycled, 12% incinerated, and 79% accumulated in landfills or the natural environment (Geyer et al., 2017). Plastics cover a large spectrum including food packaging, clothes, furniture, construction, transportation, and health care as well as communication, leisure industries and so on (Iwata, 2015). The intense public concern about the environment as well as future waste management is driving the development of new polymers with eco-friendly attributes that include biodegradable and bio- based plastics. Often, these materials are confused with each other. To the first class belong all the materials that are biodegradable, whereas biobased plastics are obtained from renewable resources instead of petroleum-based ones. Biodegradable plastics are materials that can be completely degraded by the action of natural microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi and algae, to produce carbon dioxide and water. They are considered eco-friendly plastics because of their biodegradability, regardless of whether petroleum or renewable resources are used as raw materials.