APPLICATION OF WASTE BANANA PEELS AS BIODEGRADABLE PLASTIC

The world today seems unimaginable without plastics or synthetic organic polymer, however their large-scale production and use only dates back to 1950 (1). The resulting rapid growth in plastics production is remarkable, surpassing most other man-made materials. The study presents the utilization of banana peel as biodegradable plastic to substitute the existing non-biodegradable plastic. The objectives of this research are to aims to develop and produce biodegradable plastic that will substitute the existing non-biodegradable plastic to help in saving the environment as well as to compare the properties of biodegradable plastic based on banana peel with the commercial biodegradable plastic. The use of waste banana peel in this study is mainly to replace the synthetic materials used in the conventional biodegradable plastic. Furthermore, the environmental pollutions can be reduced due to the usage of waste banana peels to produce a new value-added biodegradable plastic.   Keywords : Banana peel, biodegradable plastic, pollution, environment