Dr. Lindleen Mugwagwa made this finding during her doctoral study at SU.

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These two ingredients that were chosen by Mugwagwa are normally disposed of in landfills or used by farmers as manure to feed their animals. But she saw their potential in developing renewable, biodegradable and non-toxic food packaging that could help food keep products fresher for longer.

Mugwagwa, who recently obtained her doctorate in Chemical Engineering at the university, explains that creating this type of packaging will be beneficial to the environment as it could be ideal to replace environmentally hazardous petroleum-based packaging materials.

She further said in a statement, released by SU, “There's a move towards renewable and biodegradable food packaging in a bid to replace non-renewable and non-biodegradable petroleum-based packaging materials. We should consider using agricultural-residues like wheat straw and mango peels, which are rich in bio or natural polymers and antioxidants, as alternative raw materials to petroleum-based packaging materials."

This study is one of a kind as it was the first to develop an active food packaging material, by making use of methods to extract the essential natural polymers and antioxidants from both the natural ingredients which both contain properties that are appropriate to make it possible to develop food packaging material that is active. This means that it will have the ability to respond to temperature and time changes within the food packaging.

Additionally. Mugwagwa’s study was also “the first time that these products were integrated to form a biocomposite film (a material composite consisting of biodegradable polymers and bio-based reinforcing agents) that was tested in a food environment.”

Furthermore, she explained that when compared to low-density polyethylene plastic packaging, the bio-based films that she developed have the capability to release more antioxidants into food over a short period of time. “This suggests that they can be a replacement for packaging perishables,” she added.

When asked whether this will be a costly process, Mugwagwa answered that her research in using wheat straw and mango peels provides cheaper sustainable and biodegradable polymers which will be able to be used in creating food packaging. “[This] also presents methods for recovering natural antioxidants and their application as additives to food packaging material. These natural antioxidants have the potential to replace artificial antioxidants in packaging material that could cause cancer."

Lastly, those who will benefit from Mugwagwa’s research include farmers, the food packaging industry as well as biorefineries and consumers.

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