What all can be made from avocado seeds? Some DIY face masks, some hair packs, but wait, Biodegradable cutlery?
Cut, scoop, throw the pit and peel.
This is how most of us proceed with our avocados. They’re delicious, they’re healthy, and you can make them taste like pretty much anything.
With toast, with eggs, or on their own – you would be a little crazy to not enjoy avocados. In 2019, Mexico produced 2.4 million metric tons of this fruit. So we just need to ask where do those avocado pits go?
A Mexican company known as BioFase has come up with a novel solution that utilizes avocado pits. This answer can be the plastic alternative we’ve been looking for. It involves a material made out of avocado pit biopolymers that’s utilised to make buodegrabl cutlery and containers, but, before we delve deeper…
Why avocado pits, when there are bioplastics made out of corn and potato?
If you’re keeping up with the green side of technology, you know that there are bio-plastics being made out of crops such as corn and potato. Why, then, do we need to throw in avocado waste?
Easy peasy, hunger squeezy!
The sustainable and biodegradable plastic alternatives being made right now are not made out of food waste. Instead of using potato peel or corn cob, they use food itself. This precisely means that we aren’t feeding humans and animals with food. Our food is going into making bioplastics which, let us be honest, is not a solution for a problem. It’s a problem for another. This is why avocado pits win this game! You eat the avocado and let the pits be turned into eco-friendly, biodegradable plastics!
How is a plastic alternative being made out of our fruit seeds?!?
This technology doesn’t require any additional and complicated machinery or confusing processes! Like with any other resin, all this innovation needs is change in temperature, torques and such. What is being regarded as the best invention in Latin America in years uses a handful of steps.
What has been made out of this bioplastic till now?
The bioplastics made out of avocado seeds have been used to make biodegradable cutlery, dishes and containers till now. Forks, spoons, knives – you name it!
Even straws, people.
These items are single-use and are good for 240 days. After that, they start degrading. If you store them in cold temperatures like the refrigerator or Antarctica, they can last considerably longer! They also start the decomposition process within a year,. That’s honestly levels better than the hundreds of years it takes our usual plastics to decompose.
What is the future of avolastic(?)?
Our bioplastic has much, much lower carbon footprint than conventional plastic and other packaging materials, even paper. Biodegradable cutlery and containers are just the beginning of how far reaching the scope for this plastic alternative can be.
So, we don’t need to say that this can radically change the world. However, as advanced as we might be in our technology, saving the world will only work if we’re also advanced in our choices. Choosing a biodegradable, low carbon-footprint plastic over the everyday one that’s shoved in our faces needs to be a conscious choice and am everyday decision.
Biofase has won several awards for its innovation. It is now supplying its incredible materials to over 10 countries. This change, if accepted worldwide, might be our apology to mama nature. More than that, it will allow our crop to be used as food, and not raw material for the making of an alternative.
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