Researchers and developers have come up with an interesting and safer alternative to the toxic wrappers that enshroud our burgers, hold our fries and and cradle our nuggets.
Researchers in Australia and a German Biomaterials developer made the breakthrough that could seriously change not just the fast food game but the amount of pollution that devastates the planet..
Euro News reported on the breakthrough that resulted in the discovery of using a seaweed-based extract to make a biopolymer that could transform the way fast food packaging is made and recycled, once thrown away.
Dr. Zhongfan Jia from the Flinders Institute, said that the seaweed-based wrapper would be as recyclable as paper:
“The seaweed extracts have a similar structure to the natural fibres from which paper is made.”
Packaging used by restaurants and fast food chains is made to be oil-proof to prevent food from sticking but the formula to do it uses chemical additives like polymer that are hard to break down in the environment and the human body.
According to the UK based site Takeaway Packaging and statistics gathered from a survey in 2022, McDonald’s alone produces around three tonnes of waste…a minute and two million tonnes of packaging waste a year.
One * five – a German biomaterials company is ready to be produce this seaweed-based packaging in a factory rather than a laboratory and on a larger scale.
“We are able to reduce harmful plastic pollution with this product, and we are also using feedstock that is environmentally regenerative,” says Claire Gusko, one • fıve Co-Founder.
It’s a terrible irony that chemicals used to keep food from sticking to wrappers end up sticking to the planet and within us in a disturbingly steadfast way.
Hopefully the seaweed based biopolymer could serve as a viable alternative to the ubiquitous plastic-based packaging currently in use and polluting the Earth.
It would be pretty rad to have a wrapper made from seaweed that is born from the ocean and then once spent…returns back and breaks down.
