Scientists make plastic from Xmas tree needles

Mark Oakman 029 2024 4273 or email mark.oakman@trinitymirror.com

SCIENTISTS have developed a technique to make plastic from Christmas trees.

They have created a renewable plastic from a chemical called pinene, which is found in pine needles.

Pinene is the fragrant chemical from the terpene family that gives pine trees their distinctive “Christmas smell” and is a waste product from the paper industry.

The researchers at the University of Bath hope the plastic could be used in a range of applications, including food packaging, plastic bags and even medical implants.

They used pinene as the raw material to make a new type of plastic that can be used in the place of caprolactone, a rubbery polymer, which is not renewable.

Helena Quilter, PhD student at the university’s centre for sustainable chemical technologies, said: “We’re not talking about recycling old Christmas trees into plastics, but rather using a waste product from industry that would otherwise be thrown away, and turning it into something useful.

“So if we can make a plastic from sustainable sources, it could make a big difference to the environment.”

The project is also investigating using other terpenes, such as limonene from citrus fruit, as a substitute for petrochemicals to make a range of products from plastics to pharmaceuticals.

The research is still at the early stages – only a few grams have been made so far – but the scientists aim to scale up the process to produce larger quantities in the near future.

Professor Matthew Davidson, centre director, added: “This will help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and provides a renewable feedstock that has the potential to revolutionise the chemical industry.”