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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Smart Material Choice: The Importance of Circular Design Strategy Applications for Bio-Based Food Packaging Preproduction and End-of-Life Life Cycle Stages
ClearBio-based plastics in a circular economy: A review of recovery pathways and implications for product design
Researchers reviewed how bio-based plastics — made from renewable plant sources — can be recovered and recycled at end-of-life, finding that the feasibility of eight different recovery methods depends heavily not just on plastic chemistry but on how products are designed, and offering guidance for designers to improve recyclability.
Identifying the Drivers of Circular Food Packaging: A Comprehensive Review for the Current State of the Food Supply Chain to Be Sustainable and Circular
This review identified the key drivers of circular food packaging adoption, examining how circular economy principles applied to packaging can address sustainability challenges related to food safety, shelf life, waste reduction, and environmental impact.
Combining Eco-Design and LCA as Decision-Making Process to Prevent Plastics in Packaging Application
Researchers applied simultaneous eco-design and life cycle assessment (LCA) to help a small food packaging company redesign its frozen food packaging to reduce plastic use and microplastic dispersal into marine environments. The case study demonstrated that integrating circular economy principles and LCA from the design stage enabled more effective material substitution decisions than applying these tools sequentially.
Bio-based and Sustainable Food Packaging Technology: Relevance, Challenges and Prospects
A review assessed bio-based and sustainable food packaging technologies, evaluating their relevance as replacements for conventional plastic packaging that generates microplastic pollution. The study identifies the most promising materials and the barriers to scaling up plastic-free food packaging.
A Review on Replacing Food Packaging Plastics with Nature-Inspired Bio-Based Materials
Researchers reviewed bio-based materials inspired by nature as sustainable alternatives to petroleum-based food packaging plastics. The study highlights that while conventional plastic packaging is effective for food preservation, its environmental impact has driven research into biodegradable and compostable alternatives that could reduce plastic waste and microplastic generation.
Recirculation: A New Concept to Drive Innovation in Sustainable Product Design for Bio-Based Products
This paper introduces a 'recirculation' framework for designing bio-based products that maximizes resource efficiency and minimizes waste throughout a product's life cycle. While bio-based materials offer a sustainable alternative to petroleum plastics, the authors argue that sustainable design principles must be built in from the start to maximize their environmental benefit.
Life cycle assessment and circular economy in conjunction with treatment methodologies: Presentation and critical comparison between different food industry waste
This review applies life cycle assessment and circular economy principles to multiple food industry sectors to evaluate environmental trade-offs in processing and packaging. While not focused on microplastics specifically, it provides analytical tools applicable to assessing plastic packaging impacts across food supply chains.
Food packaging Bio-based plastics: Properties, Renewable Biomass resources, Synthesis, and Applications
This review covers bio-based plastics made from renewable biomass sources as alternatives to petroleum-based packaging, aiming to reduce plastic pollution and extend food shelf life. While bio-based plastics can reduce environmental impact at end of life, their behavior after disposal and whether they generate microplastics still requires careful evaluation.
System innovation and life cycle thinking in packaging value chain: the circularity of plastics.
This paper examines the role of circular economy principles in reducing plastic packaging waste, noting that despite existing recycling systems, plastics remain pervasive environmental contaminants. The authors argue that redesigning packaging systems for recyclability and reducing over-packaging are essential steps to address microplastic pollution at its source.
Towards a Circular Economy of Plastics: An Evaluation of the Systematic Transition to a New Generation of Bioplastics
This review evaluates the transition from petroleum-based plastics to bioplastics within a circular economy framework, assessing the sustainability, production challenges, and environmental trade-offs of current bioplastic alternatives.
Sustainable and Bio-Based Food Packaging: A Review on Past and Current Design Innovations
This review covers innovations in food packaging materials, including bio-based and biodegradable options, smart sensors that detect spoilage, and active packaging that extends shelf life. Understanding packaging alternatives is relevant to microplastic concerns because conventional plastic packaging is a major source of micro- and nanoplastic contamination in food.
Bio-Based Materials for Packaging
This review evaluates bio-based materials as sustainable alternatives for plastic packaging, examining the environmental performance, mechanical properties, and commercial viability of biopolymers in addressing the global plastic pollution crisis.
A Review of Bioplastics and Their Adoption in the Circular Economy
This review examines the current landscape of bioplastics, including bio-based and biodegradable materials, as potential alternatives to conventional fossil-fuel-derived plastics. Researchers assessed standards, life cycle analyses, and environmental performance of various bioplastic types. The study highlights that while bioplastics offer potential benefits for reducing fossil resource dependency, challenges remain around their actual environmental performance and integration into circular economy systems.
Realising the circular bioeconomy
This policy paper examines how the bioeconomy and circular economy concepts can work together to reduce waste and environmental impact, including from plastic production. Moving toward bio-based, circular systems is part of the long-term solution to the plastic pollution problem.
Socio-economic Importance of Biomaterials in the Transition to the Circular Economy Model
Researchers examined the socio-economic role of biomaterials in transitioning economies toward the circular economy model, finding that substituting conventional plastics with bio-based materials can reduce waste accumulation while meeting EU sustainable development targets for 2030.
Design framework for circular and sustainable packaging design
Researchers developed a novel packaging design framework integrating circularity and sustainability (C&S) criteria using literature review, expert brainstorming, and field visits. The framework addresses conflicts between sustainability and functional requirements and provides practical iterative strategies for packaging designers.
Bio-based plastics – a sustainable solution to plastic pollution
This review outlines the production, properties, and sustainability potential of bio-based plastics derived from renewable or recycled raw materials, arguing they can form part of a circular economy with lower carbon footprints than conventional petroleum-based plastics.
Bioplastics in the circular bioeconomy: Production pathways, biodegradation mechanisms, and environmental implications
This comprehensive review examines how bioplastics — plastics made from renewable biological sources — fit into a circular economy, covering how they are produced, how microorganisms break them down, and the environmental risks when degradation is incomplete. A key concern is that even bio-based plastics can form microplastics if they do not fully degrade in real-world conditions like marine or soil environments, meaning that simply switching to bioplastics does not automatically solve the microplastic pollution problem.
Modern biodegradable materials with accelerated degradation for dairy and food products (subject review)
This review examines biodegradable polymer packaging materials as alternatives to petroleum-based plastics for dairy and food applications, evaluating end-of-life options within a circular economy framework. The authors assess approaches including recycling, replacement of synthetic bases with organic and inorganic fillers, and development of fully biodegradable materials capable of complete environmental degradation.
Life cycle assessment and circular economy in conjunction with treatment methodologies: Presentation and critical comparison between different food industry waste
This review applies life cycle assessment (LCA) principles and circular economy thinking to evaluate environmental impacts across several food industry sectors including dairy, meat, and packaging. While not focused on microplastics, it provides methodological tools relevant to assessing the full environmental cost of plastic food packaging.
Transitioning of petroleum-based plastic food packaging to sustainable bio-based alternatives
This review explores the shift from traditional petroleum-based plastic food packaging to sustainable, bio-based alternatives driven by growing environmental concerns. The transition is motivated by the need to reduce plastic pollution, though bio-based solutions must still meet food safety and performance requirements.
Innovative Packaging Solutions from Agri-food Wastes and By-products
This review examined biodegradable bio-packaging materials derived from agri-food wastes as alternatives to petrochemical plastics, covering their preparation, properties, and use in food industries. While bio-packaging reduces microplastic accumulation and carbon footprint, the authors noted ongoing challenges in mechanical performance and cost.
Evolution of biobased and nanotechnology packaging – a review
This review traces the evolution of bio-based and nanotechnology food packaging, covering material advances, barrier properties, and end-of-life considerations. It discusses how conventional synthetic packaging contributes to marine microplastic pollution and how biodegradable bio-based alternatives could reduce this impact.
Strategic selection tool for thermoplastic materials in a renewable circular economy: Identifying future circular polymers
Researchers developed a strategic material selection tool to guide the transition toward a renewable circular economy for thermoplastics, helping identify which polymers can meet performance requirements while being decoupled from fossil feedstocks and compatible with biodegradation or closed-loop recycling.