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INTERIM SUSTAINABLE BY DESIGN ASSESSMENT - draft version

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) 2026
Gabriela Munares, Alba Matamoros, J. Benedicto, Maite Ferrando, Inka-Mari Sarvola, Katri Behm, Iines Toivanen

Summary

Researchers are developing a plant-and-microbe-based plastic alternative (made by fermenting leftover food waste) that could replace traditional fossil-fuel plastics in packaging. This draft report checks how this new material stacks up against regular plastic in terms of environmental impact, cost, and social factors—an important step toward reducing plastic waste and microplastic pollution before it ends up in our food, water, and bodies. Note that this is still a preliminary, unreviewed assessment, so the findings aren't finalized yet.

Draft version – pending review and validation by the European Commission Conventional fossil-based plastic packaging poses significant environmental challenges, including resource depletion and microplastic pollution. As part of the EU Horizon Europe–funded ViSS project, this deliverable D6.10 presents the second iteration of the interim sustainable by design (SSbD) assessment of a novel bio-based alternative: poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) produced from food industry residues through microbial fermentation. Building on the baseline established in the Preliminary assessment, the present assessment covers the environmental, economic, and social sustainability dimensions of the ViSS value chain, and applies the ViSS scoring system, which benchmarks the performance of the ViSS solution against market references.

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