Grant: Alliance Grants

Traditional plastics used in the packaging of consumer products require tens to hundreds of years to degrade. In Canada, only 9% of plastics are recycled, with the remainder going to landfills and incinerators. Improper management of plastic waste has led to plastic pollution being present in surface waters, soil, groundwater, on shorelines, in drinking water, food, and in wildlife and there are growing concerns about its impact on the animals, the environment, and human health. These concerns have motivated increasing interest in the development of biodegradable plastics. It is further desirable that the molecules and materials used to prepare plastics can be obtained from natural sources such as waste biomass (e.g., agriculture) as opposed to petrochemical sources. Working with CTK Bio Canada, a division of CTK Cosmetics, the aim of this project is to develop new biodegradable plastics for cosmetics packaging. The composites will be based on a polymer that can be obtained from biomass, combined with natural fibres from hemp stems. The fibres can be obtained from industrial hemp, an agricultural product, or from the stems, which are a waste product of Canada's cannabis industry. We will prepare new polymer analogues to enhance the degradability of the materials, and develop fabrication and processing methods that will allow our new materials to be readily implemented into the cosmetics packaging industry. Specifically, we are targeting materials that will degrade in landfill within 1 year. Using Canada's strength in bio-based resources, CTK Bio Canada will scale up production of the composites in Canada, then work with its major global partners (e.g., Chanel, Givenchy, Loreal) to bring degradable plastic packaging to customers. The cosmetics packaging market is large (>$63 billion CAD) and its customers are demanding more environmentally-sustainable packaging solutions, making it an ideal market for our new materials.