A Greener Approach to Food Packaging Solutions With the Employment of Essential Oils in Biopolymeric Matrices for Edifying the Environment

ABSTRACT Single‐use food packaging materials contribute to major solid waste pollution in the environment and become a major concern for researchers. To deal with this problem, the conventional fossil‐fuel‐based polymers are now being replaced with renewable carbon resources to suggest green materials for the food packaging industry. In this regard, a biopolymer is a natural polymer synthesised from microbes or plants and has the quality of being renewable, sustainable and widely available. Biopolymer structural characteristics are fitted for tailoring their properties to meet the conditions for food packaging. Essential oils (EO) are purely natural, sustainable and harmless alternatives to synthetic antioxidant and antimicrobial agents for adoption in biopolymer‐inferred food packaging materials. The inclusion of EOs within the polymeric matrix works on their physicochemical properties. EOs in food packaging materials not only control their shelf life but also the barriers, tensile and optical characteristics of the biopolymer. So, the integration of essential oils with biopolymer matrices is a recent approach in the food packaging industry that opens the door towards a greener environment.