Narrator: Once this goop cools and dries,
it'll look and act a lot like plastic wrap.
But it's made from seaweed.
Amanda: I don't think it would taste very good,
but you could eat it.
Narrator: There are thousands of known species
of this flexible, see-through plant.
You can see how far it stretches.
You can see how it resists.
Narrator: It also grows fast.
One type called giant kelp
can grow up to 2 feet every day.
With a few tweaks to its chemistry,
slimy kelp can form clear sheets
that keep products clean and fresh
and can break down in a compost bin.
Our materials will degrade
a little bit slower than lettuce
but faster than something like a corn cob.
Narrator: Startups around the world
are racing to transform seaweed
into a biodegradable replacement
for shopping bags, food wrappers,
and other hard-to-recycle packaging.
But can they compete with ultracheap plastic?
We visited California
to see how abundant ocean plants
could help fight worldwide waste.
Julia Marsh founded Sway in 2020.
It's a startup that designs compostable replacements
for single-use plastics.
Her work is focused on hard-to-recycle thin films.
These make up nearly half of the plastic
going into the ocean every year,
and marine life often confuses it for food.
Julia started her career as a packaging designer
but eventually realized she was adding to that problem.
Julia: Usually I was working with plastic,
and that really felt at odds with my upbringing
growing up in a place like this.
Narrator: She spent almost every morning
of her childhood poking around these tide pools.
Julia: We would always tide-pool and find little hermit crabs
and play jump rope with strands of kelp.
Narrator: Kelp and many other
types of seaweed thrive here.
Julia: People think of seaweed as being brown
and kind of slimy, and it smells bad,
but seaweed comes in all sorts of colors,
like an entire rainbow.
And usually, the browns are the ones that carry alginate,
and the reds are the ones that carry agar.
Narrator: Those ingredients are part of why
certain types of seaweed are slimy or squishy.
Julia: This is really simplified,
but that slime can be dried and powdered and re-jellified,
and that's how you create gels.
Narrator: That process starts at Sway's lab,
where the team tests out recipes.
Matthew: This laboratory setup here
is primarily for formulation development,
small-scale, as well as lab testing.
Narrator: The first ingredient is this white powder
sourced from processing centers,
which wash and dry seaweed.
It comes from inside the plant's cells.
Engineers here add that powder to water
and heat it up.
Matthew: It has a little bit of an ocean scent to it.
Narrator: Next, they'll add sugars
and starches from plants,
including coconut and wheat.
This batch also has plant-based green dye.
The last step is called casting.
Matthew: We're going to take our blended solution,
and we're going to cast it into a film.
Narrator: After about 10 seconds,
it's cool enough to peel off.
The team will cut this sheet into strips and run tests.
Matthew: We're going to put the specimen
inside of these two grips,
and with this foot pedal that's underneath here,
it'll close the grips.
Narrator: This machine tests how far the strip can stretch.
The goal is to make materials that look and act
just like regular plastic,
so when this gets out of the testing phase,
manufacturers can switch to seaweed packaging
without buying new equipment.
Julia: We're not asking individuals to make those choices.
We're asking the corporations
and the brands that are most responsible
for producing waste
to switch to our material.
Narrator: That means getting the strength,
stretch, water resistance, and color just right.
This type of film can be sealed with heat
just like a chip bag.
Amanda: And now there's a seal right up here.
Narrator: Julia says food wrappers are the next step,
but those have to meet strict industry standards
and often have multiple layers.
Right now, her sights are set on simpler plastic products,
like the ones used in the fashion industry.
Julia: Low-hanging fruit.
We're starting here because this is a huge problem globally.
Retail bags and poly bags
are some of the most pervasive polluters of marine systems.
Narrator: Poly bags are used at many steps
of fashion supply chains
to keep clothes pristine in transit.
Julia says some fashion brands are running pilot tests
with Sway packaging,
but didn't tell Insider which brands.
If those go well, it could be available to the public
sometime next year.
In 2021, Sway entered the competition
for the Tom Ford Plastic Innovation Prize,
which will award over $1 million
to startups that can find a viable replacement
for the poly bag.
Half of the eight finalists
make their products out of seaweed.
That's probably because it has a lot going for it.
Julia: It grows quickly.
You don't have to feed it anything.
You don't need pesticides or fertilizer.
No fresh water.
It's just growing.
Narrator: And you can harvest seaweed
without killing the plant.
Julia: You basically give it a haircut,
and then it regenerates.
Narrator: Of course, slicing off
tons of natural seaweed would disrupt ecosystems.
So the company works with seaweed farms.
This business in India isn't a Sway supplier,
but it showcases how simple farming seaweed can be
with just basic equipment.
Julia: We need to design
climate-resilient employment opportunities
for coastal communities that have been affected
by overfishing and climate change,
and seaweed farming is the perfect answer.
Narrator: And it can actually improve
natural surroundings, too.
Julia: While it's growing,
it's reversing the effects of ocean acidification
and providing habitat for biodiverse life.
Narrator: Julia says that idea
influenced her early design process.
Julia: I became obsessed with the concept of regeneration,
which is going a step beyond sustainability,
keeping things the way that they are,
and actually replenishing natural systems
and improving quality of life.
Narrator: Sway works with facilities like this one
to test whether its products are really compostable.
Julius says at places like this,
the packaging is gone in under 48 days.
In home compost bins,
it can take a few weeks longer.
And it can actually leave soil better off
than it was before by adding nutrients.
The company is still running tests
to see how long it would take to break down in ocean water.
Many types of bioplastic already exist.
The whole market could be worth
about $46 billion by the end of this decade.
Julia says because seaweed is affordable and abundant,
Sway's films can underprice the competition
once the company scales up.
For now, hearing from lots of other seaweed entrepreneurs
gives her hope.
Julia: I meet so many people my age, older, younger,
finding real solutions that actually can scale and scaling them.
So I feel hopeful, yeah,
even though I'm regularly confronted
with the intensity of the problem.
I feel hopeful, yeah.