A team of Turkish researchers has discovered a way to turn olive stones into bioplastics, according to a report in the Olive Oil Times. The researchers claim to be able to transform 5 t of olive pits into 3.5 t of bioplastics, which decompose within one year and are absorbed into the earth as fertiliser.

The discovery was first made by Duygu Yilmaz, who wanted to find out if her father’s habit of eating olive stones was harmful to his health. During her research, she found that olive stones had a similar chemical composition to plastics. Yilmaz then teamed up with Ahmet Fatih Ayas and Mehmet Emin Öz and launched Biolive (Istanbul / Turkey; www.biolivearge.com) in 2016.

Turkish investment group Vestel Ventures (Istanbul; www.vestelventures.com) provided funding in 2017, allowing Biolive to start designing, developing and producing bio-based plastics and resins from the cellulosic agent in the olive pits. “The plastic granules we produce can be used in industry, in packaging and in toys,” Yilmaz told newswire Energy News Live. Biolive is currently producing bioplastics from waste olive seeds at laboratory scale and plans to establish an industrial-scale manufacturing plant.

In 2018, Biolive won the advanced materials category for waste beneficiation in the Cleantech (Los Angeles, California / USA; www.cleantechopen.org) “National Accelerator Global Ideas” competition. Yilmaz was also named “Turkey’s Promising Woman Entrepreneur” in 2017.