Literally the first thing I thought when I saw the headline was “they reinvented paper”. I’m glad that they’re excited enough with this material that they are trying to scale it up but I have very...
Literally the first thing I thought when I saw the headline was “they reinvented paper”.
I’m glad that they’re excited enough with this material that they are trying to scale it up but I have very little hope of it taking off unless world governments band together to collectively legislate against plastics or fossil fuels generally. Plastic is incredibly cheap because it’s made from fuel processing byproducts. The ubiquity of plastic is at least partially a consequence of the ubiquity of gas and diesel.
I'm not terribly fluent in this field, so I can't vouch for this, but it looks like the best wax paper lets way more oxygen through than their material. That's important to avoid food spoilage as...
I'm not terribly fluent in this field, so I can't vouch for this, but it looks like the best wax paper lets way more oxygen through than their material. That's important to avoid food spoilage as it sits on store shelves.
It's probably a little more eco-friendly than foil bags, and probably a lot worse than a ground-up overhaul of how we manufacture and distribute food. At a guess, it'll end up being used in bougie potato chip bags as an upsell for their premium product, and maybe show up in some EU initiatives (or in California) before either getting struck down or quietly ignored.
No doubt from heavy lobbying from the oil/plastic industry. We use honeybee wax cloth to cover a lot of our left overs at home and find that it does a great job.
No doubt from heavy lobbying from the oil/plastic industry. We use honeybee wax cloth to cover a lot of our left overs at home and find that it does a great job.
Food for thought: I've often wondered about bio-degradable alternatives to plastic, especially since the majority of our plastic comes from fossil fuels. It was interesting reading the iterative...
Food for thought: I've often wondered about bio-degradable alternatives to plastic, especially since the majority of our plastic comes from fossil fuels. It was interesting reading the iterative process of making a better container product - I'm hoping that it sees widespread use and might keep an eye out for any products that mention having it.
One thing I'm thinking about - where would they source the chitin from to meet demand? My initial thought was mushroom agriculture, but I don't know if that's more or less feasible than crustacean farming. Maybe there's a way to synthesize chitin that wouldn't require an agriculture source of any kind that I'm not aware of?
Theres no way they’re going to actually use food waste for a packaging product. At best they’ll farm crabs specifically for the shell and throw away the rest because the machinery for one process...
Theres no way they’re going to actually use food waste for a packaging product.
At best they’ll farm crabs specifically for the shell and throw away the rest because the machinery for one process isn’t certified food safe for the other process.
On a whim, Jie measured the rate at which oxygen passed through the film. The result was astonishing: The barrier allowed less oxygen through than many existing packaging plastics. That serendipitous finding in 2014 shifted my team of engineering students’ focus from color to packaging. We asked whether natural materials could rival the performance of common plastics. In the years since, our team has used this discovery to create biodegradable films that offer a more sustainable and effective alternative to plastic packaging.
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In 2018, the team made an important leap forward by using spray coating to create layers of chitin and cellulose nanomaterials. Cellulose, like chitin, is a carbohydrate polymer – a chain of repeating carbohydrate units – and it is obtained from plants. These abundant natural materials have opposite electric charges, which led to better barrier performance when we combined them than either material alone.
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...Our team’s most recent achievement, from October 2025, combines the above innovations. As a result, we’ve created a bio-based film that is an excellent barrier to both oxygen and moisture.
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The next challenge is scaling up from experimental films to industrial production, which would likely take several years. The team is exploring roll-to-roll coating techniques and working with industry partners to integrate these materials into existing packaging lines.
It’s sad that we moved from wax paper to plastics for a lot of situations that don’t absolutely require it.
Literally the first thing I thought when I saw the headline was “they reinvented paper”.
I’m glad that they’re excited enough with this material that they are trying to scale it up but I have very little hope of it taking off unless world governments band together to collectively legislate against plastics or fossil fuels generally. Plastic is incredibly cheap because it’s made from fuel processing byproducts. The ubiquity of plastic is at least partially a consequence of the ubiquity of gas and diesel.
I'm not terribly fluent in this field, so I can't vouch for this, but it looks like the best wax paper lets way more oxygen through than their material. That's important to avoid food spoilage as it sits on store shelves.
It's probably a little more eco-friendly than foil bags, and probably a lot worse than a ground-up overhaul of how we manufacture and distribute food. At a guess, it'll end up being used in bougie potato chip bags as an upsell for their premium product, and maybe show up in some EU initiatives (or in California) before either getting struck down or quietly ignored.
God I'm so pessimistic these days
I'm just glad I'm not the only grumpy pessimistic person here :)
cheers
No doubt from heavy lobbying from the oil/plastic industry. We use honeybee wax cloth to cover a lot of our left overs at home and find that it does a great job.
Food for thought: I've often wondered about bio-degradable alternatives to plastic, especially since the majority of our plastic comes from fossil fuels. It was interesting reading the iterative process of making a better container product - I'm hoping that it sees widespread use and might keep an eye out for any products that mention having it.
One thing I'm thinking about - where would they source the chitin from to meet demand? My initial thought was mushroom agriculture, but I don't know if that's more or less feasible than crustacean farming. Maybe there's a way to synthesize chitin that wouldn't require an agriculture source of any kind that I'm not aware of?
Theres no way they’re going to actually use food waste for a packaging product.
At best they’ll farm crabs specifically for the shell and throw away the rest because the machinery for one process isn’t certified food safe for the other process.
Excerpts from the article:
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