Green chemistry and eco-design

Biomass production on Earth corresponds to around 120,000 Mt per year. However, only 5% of that biomass is captured and used by hirmans, and of those 6,000 Mt, only 5% is not destined for energy or food usage. Thus, 300 Mt are already used for chemistry. Yet these quantities are fairly close to the 500 Mt of fossil resomces used annually for chemistry, so we can see the significant potential for substitution of fossil resources by increasing use of renewable resources. The resomces ttsed essential are starch and its derivatives - sugar, ethanol, etc. - cellulose, vegetable oil and glycerol, plant fibers, etc. 

With regard to polymers, there are many types of bio-sourced polymers natmal polymers (cellttlose, starch, etc.) which can be modified physically, either alone or 

the use of renewable resonrces to synthesize polymers results in the development of new scientific challenges, snch as redaction chemistry, because biomass is highly oxygenated (whereas earlier, petrochemistry was based on the oxidation in air of the heavily rednced fossil resonrces) depolymerization of natural polymers with high molar masses polycondensation in that the bio-sonrced bnilding blocks are polyfunctional and may not necessarily have polymerizable double bonds and nse of LCA as a decision-snpport tool to identity pathways with the least enviromnental impact. 

The functional unit defined for this study corresponds to the service rendered by the bags - i.e. packing customers purchases in the stores. The hypotheses defined in the context of the study predict an average of 45 visits per year for each customer to the stores, with 200 L of purchases per visit (a trolley filled to 80% capacity), which corresponds to 9,000 L of merchandise per year. The functional unit chosen is therefore package 9,000 L of merchandise in the stores of the Carrefour Group . 

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