The Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) and the Italian National Printing and Minting House (IPZS) have unveiled a prototype of an ID card made from biodegradable plastic, the result of a project to develop alternatives to the fossil-feedstock plastic materials currently in use.
The document, which contains personal data and photographs, was made in the laboratories of two institutions using compostable bioplastics, the exact composition of which was not disclosed.
"The new materials developed in the laboratory have a lower environmental impact because they use renewable resources instead of petroleum-based resources in the production process; in addition, biologically based materials require lower temperatures during production, which also results in less energy consumption.
Following the principles of the circular economy, these products can be recycled at the end of their life cycle at lower temperatures as plastics and converted to compost for return to nature."
The new formulations developed by IIT and IPZS are compatible with existing equipment and production processes, which will make the process of industrializing the product easy to carry out.
