Yachay Tech, as part of its commitment to the sustainable development of the country through scientific research, quality education and community engagement, in a joint effort with the Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, Escuela Politécnica Nacional and the private company UyamaFarms, develops eco-packaging from of agro-industrial waste (avocado and agave seed).

Financed by CEDIA Ecuador, this initiative seeks to reduce the current problem of plastic waste in the world and to give added value to agricultural waste, of which a high percentage is discarded. Currently, single-use polymeric packaging is the main plastic pollutant on the planet; as they are still essential for the storage, transport and preservation of a myriad of products from the technology, food, health and automotive industries. Therefore, the need arises to reduce its consumption and replace it with packaging that can offer the same advantages as plastic while being compatible with the environment and at a low cost. In this sense, the project proposes to produce a biodegradable material that meets packaging requirements and that is cheap to obtain and transform. This is done by extracting biopolymers from agro-industrial waste such as starch from avocado seed, through physical separation techniques, so that they can be transformed into thermoplastic starch (TPS). However, it is known that TPS alone is not capable of meeting all the requirements of a material suitable for packaging, its low mechanical strength and high hydrophilicity restrict its field of application. In response to this, the technical-research team composed of Rose Mary Michell (Project Coordinator), faculty members Alicia Sommer, Antonio Díaz, Juan Pablo Tafur; and students Katherine Rivadeneira, Christian Utreras, David Marcalla, Adrián Yanchapaxy, Danny Peñaloza, Pablo Carrión, Daniela De Llano, Bryan Garcés, Dayana Galeas,  from the School of Chemical Sciences and Engineering of Yachay Tech; Andrés Rigail, Fabiola Cornejo and Rómulo Salazar (ESPOL); María Paulina Romero and Orlando Campaña (EPN), propose to reinforce the TPS with another biopolymer: cellulose. Cellulose is the first most abundant polysaccharide on the planet, present in the plant mass that is normally discarded during agro-industrial processes and is extracted from the agave stalk.

These biopolymers will serve as the basis for the creation of a biodegradable material with potential for single-use disposable packaging at a lower cost. Juan Pablo Tafur, professor-researcher at Yachay Tech, stated that it would be gratifying for Yachay Tech to demonstrate the usefulness of the creation of these eco-packages, as well as to portray the research potential of the University, which is on a par with countries that have been working on this issue for many years. So far, they have obtained TPS reinforced with cellulose microfibers, nanofibers and nanocrystals. “We are carrying out all the necessary characterizations of the material to be able to demonstrate the usefulness it would have in the area of ​​single-use disposable packaging,” said Tafur. This is a pioneer initiative in Ecuador, as it takes advantage of the great utility of the avocado seed and the agave stalk to then turn it into a biodegradable and eco-friendly packaging. The proposal includes the publication of a review article in Polymers, a Q1 journal with an impact factor of 4,329 (https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/13/19/3227). The perspectives of the team include the implementation of the project on a large scale, so the product can be marketed and used by the community in general. In this way, Yachay Tech carries out multidisciplinary research where different researchers are in contact and working for a common good.