The upcycling of waste plastic packaging material to a biodegradable plastic: Waste to value added product

Principal Investigator: Jasmina Nikodinovic-Runic, PhD

                The project is a proof of concept to convert waste packaging material generated within a ‘ESENSA d.o.o.’ (Belgrade, Serbia) production processes to valuable eco-friendly biodegradable plastic that could be further either used in the production process, for other applications or sold as a material.

                This advanced innovative approach of conversion of petrochemical plastics into biodegradable plastic has been developed and described in literature by the team of scientists from the University College Dublin (UCD, Dublin, Ireland) with Dr Jasmina Nikodinovic-Runic as one of the leading members. Dr Nikodinovic-Runic, now leads a team of scientists within the Institute of Molecular Genetics and Genetic Engineering (IMGGE) at The University of Belgrade and will be responsible for this project. This would be the first time for this technology to be applied on actual plastic packaging waste material generated by industry (in this case in Serbia).

                This project is funded under Green Innovation Vouchers Scheme for Serbia (http://inovacionivauceri.ebrd.rs/).