Saitama Institute of Technology in Japan uses local waste leaves to make bioplastics and conduct deep processing

There is a bioplastic manufactury and molding processing technique using local waste leaves developed by Saitama Institute of Technology in Japan. Bioplastics are easily workable materials just like ordinary plastics and thus are expected to be employed broadly.

Fukaya City, located in Saitama Prefecture next to the institution, produces the famous "Fukaya Onions" with an output of approximately 30,000 tons yearly. Ordinary green onion leaves, which tend to be too large for shipment in cartons, generate about 6,300 tons of waste. The leaves go through a yellowing process, after which they are generally buried in farmland. The degradation of the vegetable leaves, which contain sulfur-based compounds, creates a typical odor; hence farmers have to invest energy into dealing with the problem.

During the research process, Saitama Institute of Technology focused, in fact, on the "cellulose" component in the leaves. When resins mixed cellulose, a molding resin is produced. Component analysis results show that dried scallion leaves consist of 28% cellulose. Toxic components were removed from the dried onion leaves by a combination of alkaline treatment and other processes, which extracted insoluble cellulose. The resin pellets constitute about 45% polypropylene and 55% onion cellulose.

Part of the new technology consists of uses for producing resin pellets from discarding deep valley green onions and provides a usable output of around 350 tons a year. original plastics and dispositions such as integration of agriculture waste as compost will further mean considerable savings in carbon dioxide emissions, with combustion likely to elicit less than half.