Marco Astorri
The Nobility
"It was terrible to see all these tiny pieces of colored on the green lawn, knowing that they would have stayed there for thousands of years if no one had collected them."
He is the father of a prodigy: he invented a type of plastic that bio-degrades in only forty days. The incredible advantage to this groundbreaking material not only lies in its ability of being absorbed by nature, but rather in its origin. As a matter of fact, producing it doesn’t take a single drop of oil, only food industry waste products. This endeavor seems to have succeeded where many a scientist failed.
ABOUT MARCO ASTORRI
Marco Astorri is an advertising graphic designer, but this is not the reason why he is host at 21 minuti – I saperi dell’eccellenza. With his friend and colleague Guy Cicognani he patented the production of eco-sustainable plastic. The product is fully bio-degradable in water and at room temperature. If this wasn’t enough to scream “industrial miracle”, the invention of the two ambitious entrepreneurs has yet another advantage to account for: the product is made with sugar refinery waste. The residues, instead of generating costs to be disposed of, are now an important resource since they can be reused and turned into clean plastic.
The result? A polymer they named Minerv. This product, though being produced with environmental processes, retains high performance and quality. It’s a very good type of plastic obtained with a unique process, still little known, that will inevitably change the way things are done today. Besides being environmentally friendly, this material is also bio-compatible, thus opening on new, important horizons for the application and the production of medical devices.
This invention was a real earthquake, considering that the production is scheduled to start next year and Bio-on, the company founded by the two researchers, will produce approximately ten thousand tons every year. It is quite clear that the initial investment is sizeable but market analyses do not leave room for doubts: bio-plastic will be a huge success in the global and fast-growing market. Today the company operates in the biotechnology industry, more specifically on common-use material, in order to design fully-natural products and solutions, 100% made with renewable sources. This solution turns mainly to the design and apparel businesses, also providing the technology needed to produce or use bio-plastic.
The future of bio-degradable products is kept in here, in this material that, besides disappearing without a trace of pollution, does not leave any trace whatsoever. “After 10 days in the plain sweet water of any river, MINERV-PHA turns into sweet water or sea water”.
FROM OUR BLOG
