Eggshells are usually considered as a waste and everyday tons of them end up in the landfills adding to the waste problem. But ‘Green Chemists’ from the UK are making plans to use eggs as a medium to create plastics made from eggshells. The main motive of this recent project is to lay hands on the protein, which could produce plastic.
Recyclable plastics have been used extensively for years, as it not only rescues the waste from ending up into the landfills, but also saves the natural resources of the earth. Recently, a number of Scientists from a University in England are striving to test a process that seperating out the proteins found in eggshells, called glycosaminoglycans, for making plastic.
According to them eggshell is a complicated compound to a great extent, and this could provide egg boxes, as an example of closed loop recycling. Such a project will not only benefit those who are in the egg industry, as re using the egg shells will be quite cost effective for them, but it will also do good to the food manufacturers and many other industries. ‘Just Egg,’ a UK based boiled egg producer, makes use of just about a million of eggs every week and disposes off tons of eggshells as waste and spends more than $30,000 each year to send these waste shells to the landfills. This plan will not only save the cost, but also help the manufacturers to use these recycled eggshells as plastic packaging for egg products.
This project apart from being environment friendly also stands to save money that the egg manufactures spend on landfill costs, which could otherwise be invested for further innovation.
Via: Edition
