food items are covered in plastic to make them last longer and protect them from microbes but there are concerns about environmental impact due to use of this material. plastic bottles and films take between 100 and 400 years to degrade, so the quest for alternative materials to plastics is an environmental priority.various products and substances are proposed to manufacture these alternative materials cellulose, potatoes and chitosan, because it is renewable and basically crustacean garbage. environmentalist love it, but they often embrace anything that is not oil and don&39t really think about whether it is really better.chitosan may be your futuristic film wrap. credit upvehu"chitosan is made out of the shells of prawns, king prawns and other crustaceans. the environment benefits from the use of this waste material and, what is more, the resulting product, chitosan, is biodegradable," says itsaso leceta of the university of the basque country. "chitosan also has antimicrobial properties, so it is highly suited to the food industry, as it reduces the microbial load in this case of carrots. that is why their properties have been preserved better."which is better the devil or the deep blue seaalthough the results of laboratory tests have been satisfactory, the massive industrial use of chitosan for packaging food is a distant goal. "we have to go on conducting research. just as with renewable energies, it is better to have various options to produce a mix rather than just to have only one. you have to work with different polymers, to reduce the use of petroleumbased materials as much as possible," said leceta. in any case, she rates the work done positively "if we take into consideration the whole life cycle, in many environmental categories our material is better than that which is manufactured using petroleum byproducts. the key is the environment, and that has been the cornerstone of my thesis. if we don&39t manage to manufacture a material that is better from the environmental perspective, there will be no point in our work".but not all that glitters is gold, ans the saying goes "chitosan film is better than plastic film in terms of the environmental impact, in a range of categories, but that does not mean it does not pollute. the manufacturing of chitosan, unlike the production of conventional plastics, has yet to be optimized. once it has been optimiszd, the environmental impact of chitosan will be reduced even further". in short, every option has its downside, so the one that causes the least damage has to be chosen "there is a saying about what is &39better&39, the devil or the deep blue sea. well, we, too, often have to opt for the lesser evil," said the researcher.the work for this phd thesis was mostly done at the polytechnic school of donostiasan sebastian. itsaso leceta also spent three months at university college corkucc cork, ireland, after which she published the research work quality attributes of map packaged readytoeat baby carrots by using chitosanbased coatings, using the results of the collaboration with the department of food and nutritional sciences of university college cork. the research work done in collaboration with the department of applied chemistry of the upvehu&39s faculty of chemistry were also published in the phd thesis.itsaso leceta donostiasan sebastian, 1985 studied chemical engineering at the faculty of engineering in bilbao upvehu, and has a master&39s degree in renewables engineering polytechnic school of donostiasan sebastian, upvehu. her phd thesis biopolimeroetan oinarritutako filmen prestaketa, karakterizazioa eta bizi zikloaren analisia preparation, characterisation and lifecycle analysis of biopolymerbased films was supervised by koro de la caba tenured university lecturer and head of the biomat research group and by the researcher pedro guerrero.bibliographical reference scientific publications quality attributes of map packaged readytoeat baby carrots following application of chitosanbased coatings i. leceta, s. molinaro, p. guerrero, j.p. kerry, k. de la caba, in the journal postharvest biology and technology no. 100, pages 142 to 150 2015. 
