Biotextiles from the waste of the food industry A biodesign experience for sustainable tote bags

Abstract

The environmental impact has become increasingly urgent by questioning the linear economic system. Its eventual change to the circular economy can contribute to the regeneration of natural systems and the mitigation of pollution and waste. In developed countries, waste in the food sector occurs due to the lengthening of production chains, as in Portugal, where around one million tons of food are lost annually. In contrast, the textile sector is responsible for up to 20% of the contamination of fresh water. An innovative solution to transform waste into resources could mitigate waste and pollution. Biodesign is a potential option due to its performance on the industrial production scale and in developing new biobased materials. This article aims to demonstrate the scientific-exploratory development of an alternative biotextile to cotton tote bags, whose disposal becomes plausible in the sustainable dimension only after daily use for 54 years. The methodology consisted of four stages finalizing with a prototype to verify performance and identify aspects to optimize. As a result, a commercial-size tote bag was obtained, whose biofabric presents a potential alternative option, still to be optimized, to textile materials whose industrial production is commonly unaware of waste and environmental pollution. In addition to the need to optimize the mechanical resistance of the biofabric studied, we concluded that the development of this experimental project allows testing the viability of emerging solutions to the harmful effects of the linear economy through design, manufacturing, and transformation processes of the material from a circular economy perspective.