These scientists are making foam from algae.
And it could be a game changer for a type of pollution
that has a much larger footprint than most people realize:
flip-flops.
They're the world's most popular shoe,
and they're piling up on beaches and in the ocean.
Most are made from plastic foam,
which takes decades or centuries to break down naturally.
But these researchers growing green, slimy algae
may just change that.
But can this new kind of foam really replace regular flip-flops?
We visited their lab to find out.
Steve Mayfield runs the lab that makes the flip-flops.
He's studied algae for 35 years,
and he's still excited to talk about it.
They are the most efficient
photosynthetic organisms on the planet.
And they're easy to grow and harvest
in man-made ponds, using less land than plants.
The process for turning algae into flip-flops
is surprisingly simple.
The shoe consists of a footbed made from flexible foam,
an outsole made of a more rigid foam, and a cotton strap.
To make the foam pieces,
the researchers use an industrial machine
to mix together compounds created from algae oil.
This is the same machine you'd see
if you went into any one
of the shoe manufacturers in the world.
We want to make sure
that the research and the work we do here
is relevant to the real world, to the commercial world.
The machine pours the mixture into molds.
The team then applies heat,
and the foam expands into the shape of a shoe.
They wait about 10 minutes for the foam to cure,
then peel the pieces out and assemble the finished product.
You put the strap through here,
and then put the back two parts here, you glue that on,
and then this entire thing glues, and that's it.
That's all the shoe is.
So the manufacturing of these things
is also really straightforward.
The sandal is 100% biodegradable.
It takes three to six months
to break down in a compost pile,
or if it ends up in the ocean, it would take about a year.
That's much faster
than the average flip-flop made from plastic.
And replacing traditional plastic flip-flops
with algae-based ones
would also reduce the demand for fossil fuels.
Petroleum itself is biodegradable.
They become not biodegradable
when they go through a refinery,
and then a chemical company converts them to a plastic
that is not biodegradable.
So all we're doing is instead of digging algae oil
out of the ground, we're growing algae oil in ponds.
That's why for years, researchers
around the world tried to turn algae into a low-cost,
low-emission biofuel.
And for the last 15 years,
private investors and the US government
poured billions of dollars into this research.
But despite those efforts, no one has yet figured out
how to make algae biofuel cheaper than fossil fuels.
We're always going to be five years away
from making algae biofuels economically viable.
Maybe we should tackle one of the other problems
that the world has
that are a little easier to achieve economically.
They shifted their focus to biopolymers,
or plastic alternatives made from plants.
They sell at a higher price than fuel.
No. 1, they're about 10 times more expensive than fuels,
so the economics works out better.
But No. 2, plastic and ocean plastic pollution
is an enormous problem, and we need to address that.
The latest research reveals
that plastic pollution is everywhere,
even at the lowest depths of the ocean.
If current trends continue,
the amount of plastic
entering the environment annually
will nearly triple
over the next two decades.
The problem becomes apparent in places surrounded by water,
like the Aldabra atoll off the east coast of Africa.
Last year, researchers collected 25 tons of trash there.
They found that nearly a quarter of it was flip-flops.
If you actually look in the world
at what shoe is worn by the majority
of people on the planet,
it's actually a sandal or a flip-flop.
But getting these more sustainable flip-flops
into stores remains a challenge.
Mayfield founded a company, Algenesis Materials,
to start to figure that out.
The best discovery in the world that stays in the lab
doesn't really impact the world.
What impacts the world is products.
Our plan in our startup company
was to build a shoe so cool and so sustainable
that we forced all of the other companies
to pivot and become sustainable-shoe brands.
He says they're already working
with a major shoe retailer
to begin commercial production in Mexico.
But the pandemic has caused delays.
Production's going there now, but kind of slow.
We hope the flip-flops will be available
by sometime next summer.
And the startup faces another big challenge.
It can't actually buy enough algae
to support its supply chain.
For now, it's making flip-flops primarily from plants,
not algae.
We get as much as we can from algae,
and then we fill in the rest of that using plant oils.
Steve believes the supply
will catch up over time
as more algae farmers enter the market.
In the future, you will buy 100% algae-based shoes.
But if we don't make our first million shoes,
then people won't build the algae ponds
so we can make our next hundred million shoes.
But others, like researcher John Benemann,
point out that algae farming
will have to increase dramatically
in order to support mass production of items like shoes.
You're going to need 100 times more
to be able to hold our heads up.
For that reason, it could be more practical and profitable
to make biodegradable shoes out of widely available crops
like soybeans.
The argument that the algae have this particular
and specific competitive advantage
is one that still needs to be developed.
But Steve argues that algae is better
because growing it
requires less land and water than plants.
For now, Algenesis Materials is working with oils
from nonedible plants.
We choose not to use soybean or canola
because those are food oils.
So we don't want to compete with food.
Ultimately, growing more algae
and using it to make stuff is a step in the right direction.
I'm not sure to what extent
this will actually reduce CO2 emissions,
blah, blah, blah, etc.
But it's definitely stuff we need.
We need to have these kinds of market entries.
Perfect is the enemy of good enough, right?
Meaning that if you always look for the perfect solution,
you'll never do anything,
you'll just sit around.
In the meantime,
Steve says consumers can do more than simply wait
for more environmentally friendly options.
Too many people sit back and say,
"Oh, well, I would love to have biodegradable plastics,
but they're not available to me."
Well, they're not available to you
because you don't demand companies make those.
I would say the last challenge
that I want to put out to consumers
is don't underestimate your power
and demand that the world change.