Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
One of the most abundant base materials for bioplastics is cellulose, which is responsible for the structural rigidity of plant cell walls. But many plant-derived bioplastics are made from starch. Starch, however, is often sourced from materials that could be used as food, which means it could compete for important agricultural land and contribute to problems of fertilizer pollution. As a result, many researchers in Japan are now looking more seriously at cellulose.
The path to a green society could be boosted by increasing the productivity of agricultural crops that are providing cellulose to make environmentally friendly bioplastics.
Government-funded research is working to replace food packaging and aquaculture tools with recyclable or biodegradable bioplastics produced using plant matter and bacteria.
The transfer of genes that allow nitrogen to be fixed from the atmosphere into photosynthesizing cyanobacteria could one day lead to similarly engineered crops.
Byproducts from Japan’s sugar beet crop are being turned into long strands of cellulose by bacteria — offering up new material for bioplastics that could help solve global pollution woes.