Food waste is a global problem with approximately 1.3 billion tons of food wasted each year throughout the food lifecycle—from the farm to food manufacturers and households.
Across the food supply chain, Australians waste around 7.6 million tons of food each year. This costs our economy approximately A$36.6 billion annually.
In a recent study published in Bioresource Technology Reports, we have found a way to use food waste for making a versatile material known as nanocellulose. In particular, we used acid whey—a significant dairy production waste material that it usually difficult to dispose of.
Mixing waste with bacteria
Nanocellulose is a biopolymer, which means it’s a naturally produced long chain of sugars. It has remarkable properties—bacterial nanocellulose is strong, chemically stable and biocompatible, meaning it’s not harmful to human cells. This makes it a highly marketable product with applications in packaging, wound treatments, drug delivery or food production.
The traditional approach for making nanocellulose can be expensive, uses large amounts of energy and takes a long time. Some types of nanocellulose production also use a chemical process that produces unwanted waste byproducts.
By contrast, our new approach uses just food waste and a symbiotic culture of