Avocado pruning waste to make more sustainable food packaging

Although plastic allows food to be packaged safely and hygienically, its extensive use presents a significant environmental challenge due to its low recyclability and short useful life. For this reason, the industry and the scientific community have been looking for more sustainable alternatives for decades.

Research carried out recently in Spain by the University of Córdoba (UCO), in which the University of Girona has also participated, has found a way to manufacture a more environmentally friendly material for food packaging, using waste that To date it had no added value: pruning remains of the avocado tree.

Through a semichemical and mechanical process, in which the leaves and branches are mixed with soda, refined and broken down, the authors of the study have managed to isolate the fibers of the woody pruning residue and use them as reinforcing material, replacing part of bioplastic used in food packaging.

As highlighted by researcher Ramón Morcillo, main author of the work and researcher in the Bioproducts and Process Engineering group at the University of Córdoba, the research has managed, using a compatibilizing agent, to integrate the cellulose resulting from avocado waste, and reduce , at least partially, the use of biopolyethylene, a type of bioplastic widely used in the packaging industry and which, despite having a plant origin, is not biodegradable.

More resistant packaging

Beyond sustainability, this new compound has proven to be more resistant, due, in part, to the strong mechanical properties of natural fibers from avocado pruning waste. In this sense, the work has analyzed how the material would behave at different fiber proportions, even achieving an increase in tensile strength of 49%.

The next step within the group’s line of research, explains the author of the study, will be to evaluate other properties of interest to the industry, such as, for example, the antimicrobial or antioxidant capacity that the new compound can confer, thus opening the door to new more sustainable forms of conservation, specialized and adapted to different types of products.

Ramon Morcillo. (Photo: UCO)

The challenge of a change in regulations

Recently, the European Parliament approved a series of measures to reduce and recycle packaging. Some types of single-use plastic packaging will be prohibited from 2030, which represents a real challenge for the industry: carrying out market studies to evaluate the economic profitability of those sustainable packaging that have proven to be viable from a point of view. from a scientific point of view. In the words of researcher Ramón Morcillo, “it is a detailed process that requires a lot of effort and information, but which is essential for these new materials to be incorporated into the market.” We will have to wait for the next few years to see how society resolves this pressing challenge, the challenge of reducing the use of plastic and promoting an economy less dependent on fossil fuels.

The new study is titled “Avocado Pruning Residues for the Formulation of Bio-Based Polyethylene/Fiber-Based Biocomposites for Sustainable Food Packaging.” And it has been published in the academic journal Advanced Sustainable Systems. (Source: UCO)