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Biowaste
The key component of the biomaterial investigated was plant biomass, responsible for the durability, and flexibility of the developed formulations.
Biowaste, a common term for food and garden waste, represents the major component of municipal waste in Europe reaching up to 34% [European Environment Agency, 2020a]. Industrial food waste is produced at every step of production and varies between 10% to 50% of each preceding step or the initial mass based on different studies [Girotto et al., 2015].
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US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suggested Food Recovery Hierarchy to contribute to circular economy principles. One of the principles of the inverse pyramid is the increase of carbon footprint moving downside through triers. Starting from (i) source reduction and (ii) donation of the surplus of food to poor people, towards (iii) application of food waste as an animal food supplement or (iv) for industrial purposes.
The least alternative to direct dumping in the landfill is (v) composting or (vi) incineration [US Environmental Protection Agency, 2021]. Seeing the perspective of transforming my project from single piece production to industrial scale, my project aimed to potentially recover the biomass produced by industries. Instead of going to a landfill/incinerator, I propose to embed them into a polymeric matrix to enhance properties of the latter.
