Catia Bastioli and her team from Novamont s. p.a., has won this year‘‘s "European Inventors of the Year 2007" award for their invention of biodegradable plastics obtained from starch, a renewable raw material. Catia Bastioli is the first woman to be honoured "European Inventor of the Year".

The "European Inventor of the Year" award is a joint initiative by the EU Commission and the European Patent Office and aims to recognise those who, with their inventions and innovations, have made a substantial long-term contribution to technological progress in Europe and elsewhere, thus reinforcing the economic wellbeing of Europe itself.

Catia Bastioli and her team were awarded the prestigious international title in the Small and Medium Enterprise/Research Category for a series of patents filed between 1992-2001, which allowed the production of the first bioplastics from renewable agricultural sources with a stable market presence. In view of its low environmental impact and economic sustainability, this innovation provided a starting point for redrawing relevant sectors of end use applications. These materials use vegetable components such as starches and preserve their chemical structure, generated during chlorophyll photosynthesis, through a process of starch complexation with complexing agents. Such complexing process allows to create supramolecular structures which in turn generate a broad range of in-use properties and are still biodegradable in a variety of environments.

The patents receiving the awards are an integral part of the Novamont patent portfolio based on Mater-Bi®, the family of biodegradable and compostable products developed by the company. Mater-Bi® guarantees resistance and durability comparable with traditional plastics, but "biodegrades in composting" in a matter of weeks, unlike traditional plastics which take hundreds of years. Mater-Bi is today used in a range of sectors: from mulching in agriculture to shopping bags and waste bags for separated collection, from catering and hygiene products through to Goodyear low rolling resistance tyres manufactured using Biotred technology.