Replacing Plastic With Seaweed

Episode 4 of the One Earth Podcast podcast, hosted by One Earth Podcast, titled "Replacing Plastic With Seaweed" was published on April 22, 2024 and runs 47 minutes.

April 22, 2024 ·47m · One Earth Podcast

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Summary

In this episode I am joined by Alyssa Pace, the communications lead at Sway, a biomaterials startup that uses seaweed to make home-compostable alternatives to petroleum-based plastic packaging. We discuss the quality and impact of plastic alternatives, what home-compostable really means, the power of regenerative design and what stands in the way of a future without ubiquitous petroleum-based plastics. Sway is being piloted with brands like J. Crew, Burton and more and has taken the bioplastics world by storm, winning first place in the Tom Ford Plastic Innovation Prize and was one of four winners of the 1% For The Planet's Summit Awards in 2023. Made to scale, Sway's thermoplastic seaweed resin, named TPSea, is designed to fit into existing plastic manufacturing systems. With 400 million tons of new plastic created annually, innovations like TPSea that don't require new processes for manufacturing have immense potential for environmental impact. ------- LEARN about and HELP fund verified climate projects with Oco Crew, a grassroots non-profit making it easy to take climate action. Sign up for our free quarterly newsletter at OcoCrew.org and join the growing group of people from all over the world that believe collective climate action has the power to make an impact. Social Media: One Earth Podcast Oco Crew Music by Yoni Keynan Huge thanks to Moh Dalloul for post production help

Episode Description

In this episode I am joined by Alyssa Pace, the communications lead at Sway, a biomaterials startup that uses seaweed to make home-compostable alternatives to petroleum-based plastic packaging.

We discuss the quality and impact of plastic alternatives, what home-compostable really means, the power of regenerative design and what stands in the way of a future without ubiquitous petroleum-based plastics.

Sway is being piloted with brands like J. Crew, Burton and more and has taken the bioplastics world by storm, winning first place in the Tom Ford Plastic Innovation Prize and was one of four winners of the 1% For The Planet's Summit Awards in 2023.

Made to scale, Sway's thermoplastic seaweed resin, named TPSea, is designed to fit into existing plastic manufacturing systems. With 400 million tons of new plastic created annually, innovations like TPSea that don't require new processes for manufacturing have immense potential for environmental impact.

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LEARN about and HELP fund verified climate projects with Oco Crew, a grassroots non-profit making it easy to take climate action. Sign up for our free quarterly newsletter at OcoCrew.org and join the growing group of people from all over the world that believe collective climate action has the power to make an impact.

Social Media:

One Earth Podcast

Oco Crew

Music by Yoni Keynan

Huge thanks to Moh Dalloul for post production help