(34e) Sustainable Plastics for Food Packaging

Plastics are critical for food packaging, storage, and distribution, but challenges exist around plastic waste and sustainability. This presentation will give an overview of several works aimed at improving the sustainability of polyethylene-based food packaging. First, compatibilization of blends improves plastic mechanical properties for lightweighting (ACS Macro Letters, 4, 30, 2015). Second, compatibilization methods are presented for mixed stream polyethylene and polypropylene recycling (Science, 355, 814, 2017). Lastly, high-throughput polymer processing research tools to enable next-generation food packaging materials will be discussed.