Suggested by 
Aidan Mickleburgh
over 1 year ago
Many bioplastics, such as those based on algae and seaweeds, rely on human harvesting to gather the raw materials. Because of a lack of investment in the sector, most farming of seaweeds is done by hand in lower-income nations that already grow these plants. For bioplastics like these to scale, a better method for growing and harvesting the initial materials must be found.
There is significant momentum in sustainable plastics both in industry investment and public perception, and a growing acceptance that there may not be a "one size fits all" solution for replacing our various petrochemical outputs. This opens the door to experimentation and the filling of previously unconsidered market niches for new types of plastics, if they can be made with an economically resilient supply chain.
Are you interested in addressing this Unmet Need?
Serial ClimateTech Entrepreneur, Investor & Ecosystem Builder @ Infiniblaze
I guess I am more familiar with a number of other pathways for bioplastics than seaweed (I need to get up to speed there). I am way more familiar with corn stover and corn going into a number of enzyme-mediated processes to make polylactic acid (PLA). This has a similar problem in terms of feedstock collection, but has the advantage of taking products and waste products from a very well covered industrial agricultural processes. Can you clarify the range of feedstocks you are contemplating, the manufacturing process / technology / resulting plastic, and what that bioplastic's lifecycle looks like?
Founder @ Intervea
So algae-based bioplastics come from two basic kinds of algae: microalgae (think algae blooms) and macroalgae (think seaweed). Generally, both are able to be processed into the raw material necessary to make the bioplastics, and both have supply chain issues in terms of volume of production. However, the methods for harvesting these two kinds of algae are very different. When processed, the lipids are extracted, and biopolymers such as PHA and PET are synthesized from the material. This is what makes them "bio" as these lipids replace the petroleum in synthesis, and are abundant (7-23% of mass) when compared to other plant stocks. Methods for manufacturing vary depending on the polymer. The lifecycle of these plastics varies depending on whether they are designed to be biodegradable, but for intended single-use plastics, the degradation process can be as short as 1 year.