Bio-based material innovation, fish industry waste such as scales to make bioplastics for food packaging
World fish production was estimated at 177.8 million metric tons in 2019 and is expected to grow substantially in the future. Fisheries and aquaculture play an important role in food security and nutrition, as widely recognized by the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and FAO. Around 70% of fish and seafood is processed before being sold, resulting in significant amounts of solid waste from activities such as decapitation, shelling, evisceration, finning and scaling, and filleting.
Fishery by-products typically include offal, muscle tissue, carcass, heads, fins, skin, scales and bones, and account for approximately 50 to 75 percent of fresh weight, depending on the species. For example, the processing of shrimp and fish fillets produces almost 50% and 75% (by weight) of waste. About 20 percent of fisheries by-products are used as low-value ingredients in animal feed, and most are landfilled or incinerated, causing environmental, health and economic losses.
Therefore, fish waste is a growing problem that urgently requires innovative approaches and solutions. To this end, several programs and measures have been adopted around the world to prevent food waste. Among them, fish waste has attracted more and more attention as a new raw material for bioplastics in different application fields (mainly food packaging), with significant economic and environmental advantages.
By recycling several potentially valuable molecules including oils, proteins, pigments, bioactive peptides, amino acids, collagen, chitin, gelatin, they can be made into food packaging. Currently packaging can still be seen as a major source of bioplastic production segment, accounting for 47% (990,000 tons) of the total bioplastics market in 2020. Among these innovative green materials, edible/biodegradable films for food packaging applications have attracted research from academia and industry personnel's attention.
