A biofriendly new material made from barley starch blended with fiber from sugarbeet waste—a strong material that turns into compost should it end up in nature—has been created at the University of Copenhagen. In the long term, the researchers hope that their invention can help put the brakes on plastic pollution while reducing the climate footprint of plastic production.
That’s what I wanted to know. This is a huge improvement over current products that, while still plant-based, aren’t really biodegradable because they have to be processed in an industrial composting facility. For products that need to be durable only in the short term (e.g. takeout containers), this will be great!
The question then becomes how well does this work in place of traditional plastics? Does it have the same strength and water resistance? It needs to hold up to moisture in order to be used for takeout. If food partially breaks it down, people will be ingesting it so toxicity is also a concern. It will be interesting to see where this goes. Even if it can only replace shopping bags, that will still be a huge improvement. So many bags blow away in the wind and I live in an area that made it illegal for cities to ban single use shopping bags.
Toxicity might also be a concern if you compost it by throwing it into nature. This is my big gripe with all these alternatives: Are they less harmful than (micro)plastic?
Just consider how incredibly toxic gluten is for a lot of people, this wheat and barley plastic is going to literally poison a sizable portion of the population