Agro resources based-packaging

Agro-resources are defined by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) as all raw materials derived from agriculture, whatever their intended use. This refers exclusively to materials of living origin cultivated by man, and not to those taken directly from the environment.

They are therefore considered renewable.

This article therefore excludes animal biomass and all marine resources derived from micro- and macro-algae and phytoplankton.

Agro-resources represent a palette of raw materials with extraordinary potential, not least to feed the 9 billion or so human beings who will soon make up our Humanity.

Agro-resources are made up of ordered and hierarchical assemblies of biomolecules that enable them to fulfill their role in Nature: plant structures, for example. Over and above the basic needs that agri-resources have been meeting for millennia (food, housing, textiles), they have, for less than a century, been attracting growing interest for non-food uses in the fields of bioenergy (e.g. biofuels), biofertilizers, biomolecules and, more recently, biomaterials (e.g. automobiles, construction, packaging...).

Biomaterials include not only bioplastics, but also natural lignocellulosic fibers, which can be used as reinforcing fillers in the production of composite materials, making them highly promising alternatives to composites reinforced with synthetic fibers.

Agro-resources have thus become renewable raw materials whose transformation by manufacturers enables them to design high-performance products with reduced environmental impact.

It should be stressed that the resource seems inexhaustible: agro-resources are made up mainly of polysaccharides, including cellulose, and it is estimated that nature produces 10 ¹⁰ to 10 ¹¹ tons of cellulose annually, i.e. at least half of terrestrial biomass ( , ).

The use of agro-resources in packaging has been known for centuries as :

• the use of waxes to coat fruits in 12th-century China to protect them from drying out, among other things (