Researchers are commercializing technology to turn waste into plastic-free, biodegradable packaging
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:
Seafood is a major industry in New England. It generates a lot of revenue for coastal communities, but with that productivity can come a lot of waste.
Right now, that waste—things like crab and lobster shells—is just dumped into landfills where it decomposes slowly and releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Mingyu Qiao, assistant professor of innovation and entrepreneurship in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, and Yangchao Luo, associate professor of nutritional sciences, are two researchers in the University of Connecticut's College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources investigating how seafood waste and algae can be used to produce plastic-free, biodegradable packaging.
They recently published four articles on the topic, one each in the journals Foods and Food Hydrocolloids, and two in the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules.
