Shopping bag soup for dinner!

You can't stockpile it either in a factory.

You would need direct feed from plastic manufacturer to your packaging line with no caps, breaks or supply issues.

Isn't the primary problem lack of algae for a mass production scale and low density per unit of volume you need to farm it.

There are countless technologies for alternatives, but they all lack the means to scale up.

Its a joke or allusion to soylent green

A faster decomp than plastic is absolutely a win but less than a year would make it almost entirely worthless. By the time it gets from the factory to the consumer it will probably already be falling apart

Agreeeeed. There are hidden costs to these pollutants but they aren't on the bottom line. Let's PUT THEM THERE.

We're probably going to need to add a petroleum tax and/or fossil fuel tax to make up for the hidden costs of continuing to use oil-based plastics and fossil fuels. Eliminating subsidies for oil and coal companies would also help.

I’m a kelp farmer and I must say there’s a lot of noise and very little to show from bioplastic companies that I talk to.

I think there may be some very real potential on the biofuels front but scaling up will take some awesome infrastructure projects the likes of which we can’t easily imagine for, including it’s effects on ocean dwellers and oceanic nutrient flows.

It's not the point but it's definitely a factor. Imagine your warehouse having some liquid all over the floor and a good chunk of the product because this algae plastic degraded early. If it hurts the bottom line, companies won't switch easily, which means this tech won't have much of an impact.

If it even so much as just "doesn't hurt the bottom line" companies will gladly switch and tout their eco friendly products.

Algae is so excessively renewable, it's a natural priority right now.

That sounds absolutely awesome if used for food packaging, like replacing all those plastic clam shells and soda can ties. At first I was worried this was going to be like when they foolishly replaced wiring insulation with soy and was imagining the rodents salivating over newly edible algae car parts and electrical boxes after they finished off the wires.

I can instantly think that this would be perfect for disposable water bottles.

I really hope she gets rich in this! That will motivate others to try and to the same!

>These are then sold to food, cosmetics, textiles, packing and agricultural companies.

It would be great if these products wouldn't eventually decompose into carbon dioxide, methane, etc. that contribute to climate change. Algae is great at capturing carbon, but we have to make sure it doesn't reenter the atmosphere

I've always wanted to see human ability to over harvest up against something invasive or over populous.

If it gets scaled up to commercial and ubiquitous use, a good fleet of commercial ships could theoretically clean huge swaths of water.

Two birds, one stone.

Kind of get where you come from, the issue comes from excess of nutrients in the water being washed out from farm terrains, but the issue is that the excess of algae needs to be fixed. Whether it's by organizations, or by the producers trying to fix their own mess

Sure. The issue is that the entire industry currently relies on huge stores of cheap inventory. Turning this into just in time will be a logistics challenge and one that won’t happen quickly.

I can wait for some A.I.(Algae Intelligence) to get developed.

Yeah food titans like Tyson and McDonald's could easily use this in their operations

Yea this could be very useful in things like food containers where the contents don't even let 6-8 weeks

Somebody should focus on the algae in Lake Erie for this project.

That's literally why they're looking for a replacement for plastic. It's now in food we eat because that shit lasts forever💀💀

Maybe they can turn algae into another one of those amazing batteries we keep hearing about. You know, the ones that charge instantly, fit in your pocket, and hold a charge large enough to power your house for 10 years.

Medical, industrial and shipping use literally thousands of tons of disposable plastic everyday.