Development of piscine gelatin-starch blend thermoset bioplastic as a replacement for petroleum-based plastic and assessment of its biodegradation in soil environment.

The environmental damage linked with the excess use of plastic in packaging industry has created the need for the development of bioplastics that decompose rapidly into water, carbon dioxide and biomass (Telles et al., 2011). Starch based bioplastics are among the most popular bioplastics due to its low cost of production and high biodegradability. However, some physicochemical and mechanical properties in starch based bioplastics are still not comparable with the same properties in conventional plastics (Santana et al., 2107). Gelatine and its hydrolysed form collagen are protein polymers linked with tissue strength and elasticity (Ikoma et al., 2003). Adding different types of collagen to the formulation of bioplastics, can potentially give them characteristics more similar to conventional plastics without compromising their biodegradability. Moreover, the marine processing industry discards 100s tonnes of collagen rich products every year. Fish skins and bones as well as mussel byssus are among collagen rich by-products from the Irish fish and shellfish industries (BIM, 2017). These by-products are often discarded and incinerated, which adds significant costs to the marine processing industry (Neves et al. 2017). Using collagen arising from waste products from the fish and shellfish industry in the formulation of novel bioplastics, with better physicochemical properties but without compromising its biodegradability, can have significant interest to the packaging industry. Moreover, these bioplastics will valorise by-products arising from fish and shellfish industries reducing volume of waste and costs of waste treatment.

The aim of this project is to produce a bioplastic with physicochemical characteristics comparable to the conventional plastics using by-products from the fish and shellfish industries.