On January 3, Barbara Nicholas, a researcher at the Pozzuoli Institute of Biomolecular Chemistry under the Italian National Research Council, announced that her research team has discovered that abandoned tomato skin can be used to make biodegradable plastic bags.

Nicholas told the Italian press on the same day that he knew that tomatoes can be processed into canned foods such as tomato sauce, but what people may not know is that about 40% of tomatoes and tomato seeds are processed during processing. Raw materials are lost as waste. Researchers extracted complex saccharides from these abandoned tomato waste, especially from tomato peels. After refining and purification processes, these substances can be converted into a series of biodegradable plastic products, including plastic bags that people often use for shopping. As well as plastic films used in farmland.

Nicholas stressed that the project has achieved sustainable economic and environmental development, which not only ensures the recycling and reuse of waste, but also protects the environment and saves resources, while reducing the cost of garbage collection and disposal, and creating more job opportunities. get more.

This project was funded by the Italian government and is currently being tried in some companies in the southern city of Naples. Satisfactory results have been achieved. Nicholas said that the recycling of tomato waste will be a huge "economic resource." As one of Europe's major agricultural countries, Italy is a major producer of tomatoes in Europe and has a large number of tomato-related food processing companies.

It has also been reported that tomato industrial waste has so far been successfully used in the manufacture of resins, artificial blood plasma products, and medical supplies.