Sustainably sourced biopolymers for use in complex paper packaging

Plastic packaging and the waste associated with it is a well-known and painful part of modern life. However, it is the recycling, recovery, and end-of-life that we all hate, not the added convenience, hygiene, and shelf-life of products. Certain products just could not be sold without packaging, as oxygen and humidity would spoil and rot the food or let coffee beans lose all their aroma, but equally -- protect sensitive electronics or battery innards. These are precisely the packaging materials that can't be recycled and wind up in landfill or incinerators. The packaging materials, which you have likely handled today, are those with a lining of thin film of aluminium. This metal layer blocks all gas transmission, but equally, makes recycling and separating the metal from the plastic nearly impossible -- so actually plastic is not the only villain here... Our project aims to kick metals out of packaging films and turn to nature for a solution. Chitosan is an abundant natural polymer found in fungi and insect/crustaceans shells and itself evolved over billions of years to be stronger than steel and completely impervious to air and water. By making thin films of chitosan (and a little magical chemistry from our Smart Plastics library), we can create layers that serve the function of metal coatings but remain totally biodegradable and recyclable. Chitosan once crushed and mixed back into a recycled plastic will not degrade its properties, as metal would, but in fact strengthen the recycled materials. By using chitosan, we can aim for our packaging materials to be home compostable and totally sustainable. We propose a focused product development to move our technology into the market by piloting a new flexible film that can seal in flavour, extend shelf lives, and all of this without the need for mixing metals into our plastic. We hope the wait for bioplastics is over and the UK can be the champion of this revolution.