A team from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia has created a bioplastic that repels dirt and decomposes quickly in the soil. The innovative solution, according to the Green Severs portal, was inspired by the leaves of the lotus flower, which repel water and dust..

"Plastic waste is one of our biggest environmental challenges, but the alternatives we've developed need to be environmentally friendly and economical to have a chance of widespread use," says Mehran Ghasemlou, lead author of the study, quoted by Green Svers. "We designed this new bioplastic with large-scale manufacturing in mind, ensuring that it was simple to make and could be easily integrated into industrial manufacturing processes."

As they explain in article, bioplastic is produced through friend and cellulose, and does not require heating or complicated equipment to produce. Being produced at low cost and through widely available materials, as well as easily degradable in nature, it becomes a solution capable of being produced on a large scale and undoubtedly more environmentally friendly. As the authors note, thanks to its strength and "self-cleaning" properties, it will be an ideal bioplastic for travel packaging or for storing fresh food.

"We have carefully selected our raw materials for compostability and this is reflected in the results ose our soil studies, where we can see that the bioplastic breaks down quickly and simply with exposure to bacteria and insects in the soil," the researcher adds.