Man has produced more than eight billion tonnes of plastic – and has consigned 6.3 billion tonnes of it to landfill or the ocean. Plastic pollutes and is resource-intensive. However, a group of startups is looking for other ways to produce sustainable packaging.
In 2018, seaweed, which can grow up to three metres per day, will emerge as an alternative raw material to oil. A quiet revolution is already taking place on the shores of the East China Sea, where the kelp industry is booming.
Several startups are pioneering the use of seaweed in a wide range of applications including biofuel, cosmetics, food and pharmaceuticals. In 2013, Skipping Rocks Lab, which I co-founded, introduced Ooho, an edible water-bottle made from brown seaweed, as an alternative to plastic bottles. In 2010, New York-based Loliware launched its first range of "biodegr(edible)" cups made from agar, which is extracted from red seaweed (it is working on a straw made from the same material). In 2016, three Japanese designers, known collectively as AMAM, unveiled a box for a perfume bottle made from seaweed. They are now working with British designer Max Lamb, who uses waste material to create furniture.
Read more: This is what China's overfishing problem looks like
Seaweed has many advantages as a raw material. It's cheap, easy to harvest and extract and is available on every coastline. Moreover, unlike the starch that bioplastics such as polylactic acid are made from, it doesn't require fresh water or fertiliser to grow.
Seaweed's biggest potential lies in disposable packaging inspired by peelable fruits that have a biodegradable container. As well as being abundant - just 0.03 per cent of the brown seaweed in the world could replace all of the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles we get through every year – it can solve what is known as shelf-life gap, the difference between the biodegradability of a container and that of what is in it.
As an example, picture a plastic bottle of orange juice. The shelf life of the juice is about two days. Its PET plastic bottle will take more than 700 years to degrade. By contrast, seaweed packaging biodegrades in soil in four to six weeks. Unlike plastic, it doesn't break down into micro-particles that are impossible to collect.
Seaweed is also a powerful agent to reduce ocean acidity. Autonomous seaweed farms, such as those being pioneered by New York startup GreenWave, not only help bring down costs, but also reduce global warming.
This year, we will see seaweed-based products everywhere. And we will question how it was ever considered acceptable to simply throw away plastic bottles.
Updated 22.01.18, 09:47: Loliware was introduced in 2010, not 2015.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
