| Summary: | In recent years the development of new recyclable and biodegradable food packaging systems has been greatly increased, because currently raw material used in the food packaging industry is mainly plastic, a non-biodegradable and not so easy recyclable material. The packaging industry is the largest single end-user for plastics globally, and about 100 million tons of plastic materials are used annually worldwide. Polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) are the most used petrochemical-based plastic materials used in the food packaging industry, the main advantage of these being the low production price, however, the recycling and reuse rate being very low. Biodegradable polymer materials such as polylactic acid (PLA), polyhydroxyl alkanoate (PHA) and polyhydroxyl butyrate (PHB) are increasingly used in the food packaging industry due to their capability to biodegrade which leads to benefits for the environment preservation. This review will describe current status of existing petrochemical-based plastics and their capabilities to be recycled and the newly developed biodegradable food packaging materials explaining which are the opportunities and which are the risks of it for a better sustainability of our life.
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