Oranges are a very high production crop that produce a significant amount of waste after juicing. Value can be added to this waste if it can be reused as filler to produce packaging. However, thermoformed trays, which are broadly used in food packaging, have not yet been produced using agricultural waste. The aim of the first part of the study was to develop and investigate the properties of trays containing orange peel powder (OPP) using industrial thermoforming processing. The processing conditions necessaries for PLA/OPP tray production were determined and under these conditions, up to 30 wt% OPP was successfully added to PLA for PLA/OPP tray production. Thus, the first part of the study shows that OPP up to 30 wt% can be used for commercial production of thermoformed trays, without compromising most of the properties compared to neat PLA trays, which would reduce agricultural and plastic waste. Masterbatch process (MB), which improves the performance and properties of the packaging materials, has not been evaluated yet on agricultural waste. The second part of the study was aimed at investigating the effect of masterbatch by developing and comparing (1) trays with increasing amount of OPP produced by MB and (2) trays with the same amount of OPP produced by MB and direct blending. Trays produced using MB had better distribution of OPP that improved processability, which allowed for 5% more OPP (35 wt%) to be used as plastic filler. Therefore, this study shows that the use of MB increased the amount of waste that can be added to the polymer matrix during tray production and improved the properties of the trays compared to direct blending.
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