Plastics are very useful materials.
Theyve contributed significant benefits to modern society.
But the unprecedented amount of plastics produced over the past few decades has caused serious environmental pollution.
Packaging alone was responsible for46% out of 340 million tonnesof plastic waste generated globally in 2018.
The demand for food will double by 2050.
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Nowresearchersat the University of Cambridge have found a way to make plastic from abundant and sustainable plant proteins.
PET can take hundreds of years to decompose and its non-biodegradable.
This means it can continue to pollute the ecosystem for many years.
Making plastic requires lots of energy.
PLA polymers are produced from renewable resources and have the advantage of beingrecyclable and compostable.
This makes PLA a much more environmentally friendly material than PET, PS, and CPET.
However, their long-term durability and stability are lower than their synthetic counterparts.
The researchers created a plant-based plastic and added nanoparticles particles smaller than one-millionth of a meter.
Theyve called it a vegan spider silk.
The new material in action.
They analyzed important properties, such as barrier properties and moisture absorption.
They found the nanoparticles helped to increase the various properties strength and long-term durability and stability significantly.
This is one of the most exciting parts of this study.
