AIMPLAS’ Project Bread4PLA Wins Green Award

The Plastics Technology Centre AIMPLAS’ project Bread4PLA has won a Green Award, in the Environment Category of the LIFE awards, from the European Commission.

AIMPLAS’ Bread4PLA is making biodegradable and compostable packages for bakery and pastry products, from bakery waste. The European Commission has selected it as one of the best 15 LIFE projects of the last 25 years.

It is hoped the treatment and recovery of waste from the bakery at pilot plant scale will result in new packages to be used by bakers. Thanks to the fermentation of crusts and waste from sliced bread and biscuits, polylactic acid (PLA) can be obtained for film in packaging.

The development had the collaboration of companies such as Panrico and Grupo Siro and is especially effective to avoid the rancidity of products like cookies, where a shelf life of up to twelve months has been achieved. Bakery waste is generally used as animal feed, but can now be made in much higher-value products.

The project benefited by the expertise of other researchers from the Cereals Technology Centre (CETECE) (Spain), the Leibniz-Institut für Agrartechnik Pstdam-Bornim ATB (Germany) and the Biocomposites Centre of the Bangor University (UK).