Greener alternative to PET, olive pit bioplastic, Dupont and NIPI new insulation, biobased Mardi Gras beads and more: The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of February 15th

#2 Concern for father’s health leads to olive pit bioplastic

In Turkey, researcher Duygu Yilmaz has founded a startup to produce biodegradable plastic from discarded olive pits.

Dubbed Bioolive, the company has its roots in Yilmaz’s concern over her father’s habit of eating olive pits to soothe his stomach. She looked at olive pits just to make sure they wouldn’t be harmful, only to notice that they had structural similarities to plastic. She went on to found Biolive, which collects pits from olive oil makers and produces bioplastic.

Biolive’s plastic biodegrades in just a year, and reduces carbon dioxide emissions, Yilmaz tells Good News Network. She adds that she wants to expand production to one day replace traditional plastics completely.
More on the story, here.