October 11, 2024

Bowen Zhou

12th Grade

St. Francis Preparatory School

There are many different opinions about seaweed. Some call it gross, while to others it is a delicacy, to some it is a treat, while to others it is nothing but a weed, like sargassum, which costs twenty five thousand dollars a day to remove. Seaweed, regardless of how you see it, can be used for good with this up-and-coming technology allowing seaweed to be used to create a type of bioplastic. A company in Indonesia, called Evoware, has used seaweed to create plastic pellets, which are used to create things like plastic bags. In the past, they have made edible cups and straws. They make these plastic bags with pellets. Modern plastic consumables and other items are made through plastic pellets, they are melted and molded into shape. These new pellets that Evoware is making are scalable and they are also sustainable to manufacture.

Another company, Sway, is making seaweed pellets from seaweed farms from around the world. Once the seaweed is dried they are processed to extract natural polymers inside, then they are blended with starches and sugars to make the biodegradable films they sell. The implications of this are big because plastic is one of the biggest disruptors of wildlife. As plastic becomes more and more commonly found in our environment, it gets found in our food as well, one example is fish. Around three billion people around the world depend on fish for food. As fish ingest plastic, it finds its way inside our bodies. A recent study has found microplastics in our blood and even in placentas. These microplastics leach from larger pieces of plastic like milk cartons or water bottles. Adults ingest as much as two thousand microplastics per year through salt, but they can also find its way into our bodies through tap water. Ingesting these plastics means having a risk of cancer, endocrine disruption, and insulin resistance among other things. 

This new plastic made from seaweed can help reduce the chances of us eating microplastics because it’s biodegradable. It can also prevent harm to wildlife. Animals also get caught in plastic, which causes needless deaths. A common example is seals, the National Marine Laboratory estimates forty thousand seals die from plastic entanglement. Plastic can also block the digestive tracts of animals because plastic is not digestible. The plastic made from seaweed does not have this problem because it is biodegradable. It also returns some of the energy used to produce the “seaweed plastic” by returning it to the environment.

Plastic made from seaweed can be a great alternative to traditional one-use plastics commonly used today. Not only can it serve a role in everyday life, but it can also serve a role in reducing plastic waste and preventing needless animal deaths.