Plastic Pollution 5 – We are the Solution

Part 5 of 5

Alternative and Very Renewable and Biodegradable Sources of Plastic

I have a confession to share with you, I have a plastic gloves fetish.

It all started normally enough when I collected my three children. Then I was subjected to the child hygiene inculcation. Frankly it was little short of a miracle that I didn’t sterilise my nipples before each feed!

Rubber fetish this is not! Powderless vinyl, wear once and throw away, and again and again and again. Why am I confessing and telling you this? Because the plastic genie is out of the glass bottle and we do need plastic.

In some cases plastics are irreplaceable. For example in medicine. Whether in hospital environments or in war zones where plastic is used to make rapid prosthetics for bomb victims. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0kw0rf0

But plastic does not need to originate from fossil fuels such as oil, gas or coal.

The renewable alternative does not need to be grown instead of food on farmland with the financially and environmentally destructive addition of fossil fuel derived fertilisers, herbicides and pesticides,

The Answer is Seaweed !

What is ‘Seaweed’? That’s a really good question

According to Wikipedia “Seaweed, or macroalgae, refers to thousands of species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae“. Read the full article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaweed.

This is Kelpy Founder and CEO Fionnuala Quin.

Fionnuala became obsessed with making plastic from seaweed.

Credit https://thefishsite.com/articles/kelpy-launches-seaweed-based-bioplastic-pellets

The plastic pellets Kelpy produce can be used in existing moulds to make biodegradable packaging.

The product can be engineered to have a short life – for food packaging, or a longer life for shampoo bottles.

https://www.theceomagazine.com/business/start-ups-entrepreneurs/kelpy-fionnuala-quin/

Naturally and refreshingly, care for the environment is central to the ethos of Kelpy. https://www.kelpy.co/marine-bioproducts

Fionnuala is one of a growing number of humans who believe that plastic from seaweed is a B I G WIN – WIN answer to the need for clean, green, environmentally friendly plastic.

So, how can we make safe biodegradable plastic? In 2021 Robert Murray Smith published a DIY video entitled ‘How To Make A Seaweed Bioplastic – The Basics.

He used local dried and powdered seaweed, cornflour and water to produce a thin plastic film and a block of plastic suitable for processing in a mould. Using additional ingredients the possibilities for seaweed plastics are endless – unlike their specially engineered limited lifespan.

Supporting Global Players

A sustainable and commercially viable future?

Do you recall that I confessed to still using a multinational brand shampoo bar and another multinationals face wash bar, well this is the reason why.

Despite their global muscle, multinationals still want your money.   Walking away from their product is not the only way to influence their commercial decisions.

For example, take the top brand shampoo bar and face wash bar I use. Both products are really very good.   Buying their products in plastic free packaging gives them an incentive to promote the use of fossil-free alternative packaging for their products

The Global Multinationals have the financial power to support the development of innovative alternatives to fossil derived plastics.

Conclusion

So why I have spent so much time creating this series of blogs for you to read?

In part it is to educate.   Though hopefully most of what I have written you will already know.

The purpose is to give you an example of the ‘Bizarreness Effect’ and how we can strengthen our collective message.  After all, when did you last see this many used toothpaste tubes in YOUR bathroom?

To Enthuse.    It takes energy to be passionate about this global issue and we all need to be talking about Plastic Pollution with Passion.

To Challenge the view that alternatives are more expensive.

Most importantly

To highlight the true price of fossil-fuel plastic consumables

Because, in my view, ultimately 

The true cost of global plastic waste is very expensive indeed

So the question of the moment is:-

Will YOU take TIME to buy less single use plastic

? That is a really good question!

Bo Nightingale

A narrated video version of these posts, less the chemistry, is available on YouTube