New Eco-Friendly Packaging Strategies Based on the Use of Agri-Food By-Products and Waste

The wide use of petroleum-derived plastics and their negative impact on the environment require deep research on biodegradable materials obtained from renewable resources. The preserved food industry must sustain increasing costs for treating solid and liquid wastes. In fact, the use of these materials for animal feed or fertilizer without pre-treatments is not easy because of the intolerance of some animals to some waste components and the known germination inhibition properties of many polyphenols. The use of this material to develop innovative biodegradable packaging could represent an exciting opportunity. This chapter gives an overview of the leading research related to agri-food by-products and industrial food wastes to realize biodegradable food packaging.