Starting from anxiety about the accumulation of plastic waste and food waste, which have a negative impact on the environment, a group of UPI agro-industrial technology education students who are members of the PKM team (Student Creativity Program), created packaging materials that are environmentally friendly, cheap and safe, namely bioplastic from mango seeds.
Sarah Amelia Nur Wahidah Al Falah as Team Leader along with 2 colleagues, Chintya Nur Farida and Destia Mega Al Hartawan previously received a funding grant of PKM (Student Creativity Program) from Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, Research and Technology. Dr. Mustika Nuramalia Handayani, STP., M.Pd., as their lecturer and supervisor hopes that the results of this research can contribute to the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs), especially the 12th goal of SDGs, responsible consumption and production.
Plastic waste is still an unresolved problem, since people still continue to use plastic packaging which is considered more practical and cheaper. “Actually, environmentally friendly plastics have started to be widely used, but what distinguishes these bioplastics is that we use starch extract from mango seed waste as the main raw material. Then we also added the essential oil extracted from lemongrass as an antibacterial agent.
This bioplastic, in addition to using raw materials that are easy to obtain but safe to use as packaging material for food products”, said Sarah, the team leader. Chintya added that for the raw material (mango seeds), we cooperate with several juice sellers around Gegerkalong, Bandung and also mango seed collectors. Lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) is known to have high antioxidant, antibacterial and antifungal properties.
This research has succeeded in creating bioplastic products and has been tested according to plastic standards. This achievement came from the support of various parties, as well as continuous team coordination. Every week, the team always carries out evaluations of this research progress. In this regard, Sarah as the team leader said that she hopes this research can encourage fellow students to innovate and create something that is beneficial to the environment and society.