English scientists working at Imperial College London have spent over three years perfecting a plastic for food and non-food packaging that does not use fossil fuels to make, doesn't take a lot of money and materials to make, and quickly degrades to harmless materials after placed in compost piles and landfills.

Dr. Molly Stevens is part of the research team working at Imperial College London. Dr. Stevens is a professor within ICL's Department of Biomedical Materials and Regenerative Medicine.

She is also the research director for Biomedical Material Sciences in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering.

Another member of the team is Dr. Charlotte Williams, a scientist with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

The biorenewable plastic made by the Stevens team consists of sugars called lignocellulosic biomass, which refers to plant biomass composed of cellulose, lignin, and hemicellulose.

They can be made from materials not used for food, such as wastes left over in agricultural waste (corn and sugarcane, for example).

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The biorenewable plastic made at Imperial College London can also be made from lumber waste (such as from the discarded materials from sawmills and paper mills).

It can also be made from fast-growing grasses and trees.

And, the new plastic doesn't take a large amount of energy nor money to produce it.

Maybe even more important, it doesn't take much to break it down once it is discarded.

In fact, it is easily absorbs by water when exposed to the air because its structure is primarily composed of oxygen.

Dr. Williams states, 'Our key breakthrough was in finding a way of using a non-food crop to form a polymer, as there are ethical issues around using food sources in this way.' [X-journals: 'A Breakthrough in the Search for Greener Plastics']

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Dr. Williams talked about the time it took to develop it, and to make it inexpensively.

She states, 'For the plastic to be useful it had to be manufactured in large volumes, which was technically challenging."

And, "It took three-and-a-half years for us to hit a yield of around 80% in a low energy, low water use process,'

Dr. Williams concluded, 'The development of the material is very promising and I'm optimistic that the technology could be in use within two to five years.'