A plastic bag might be the most over engineered object in history. That’s because of the magical chemistry of plastic. Essentially oil turned solid with carbon and hydrogen atoms that line up in repeating units to form long noodle like molecules. These molecules are pliable and strong which is what makes plastic so widely useful. Plastic bags can last intact and usable for decades. We create a bag rugged enough to span decades and then use it for minutes before shoving it in a drawer or, more likely, sending it off to a landfill.
The environmental problem of single use plastics haunts the public imagination like a spectral wolf. There’s plastic in grocery bags obviously, but also in yoga pants and car tires and building materials and toys and medical products. We now crank out more than 500 million tons of plastic waste a year. Globally, only 9% of plastics are recycled. A significant chunk also ends up in the ocean which has already amassed as much as 219,000,000 tons of the stuff. If we want to begin unwinding the plastic revolution, one good place to start is all those single use products. They’re not easy to walk away from in part because we use so many types in so many places. But if you add up all these unplastic developments you’ll find grounds for cautious optimism. We’ve got a path to a world less littered with deathless plastic waste.
Marsh wants to fix that. What if she could make them out of something that could actually be composted? Marsh decided instead to tackle the plastics packaging problem. She didn’t want to work with a feedstock like corn though. To make tons of bioplastics out of those materials you’d need to grow so much of them that you’d wreck the soil and emit lots of CO2. She ticked off the other Requires virtually 0 inputs to grow Really low carbon usage really low energy no fertilizer, no arable land no fresh water Intrigued by seaweed’s potential, Marsh began experimenting in her New York kitchen. Inspired by online tutorials, she discovered that powdered seaweed polysaccharides, when mixed with hot water, form a gooey gel.
As this gel cools, it solidifies into a material with plasticky properties. Early attempts were crude, but they demonstrated a fundamental principle: seaweed’s natural gelling capabilities could be harnessed to create a new kind of film.
Not every plastic bag should be perfectly stretchy, strong, and durable for the ages. Yet, that’s precisely what we’ve engineered – a material built to last, used for mere moments, then discarded to haunt our ecosystems for centuries.
But innovation is happening. Marsh’s work with seaweed shows us that sustainable alternatives are possible. It’s a reminder that we can design materials that work with nature, not against it.
The challenge is immense, but so is the potential. As we look towards a future with less plastic waste, we must support these innovations and demand more sustainable solutions. The path forward isn’t just about replacing plastic; it’s about reimagining our relationship with materials.
Let’s choose a future where convenience and environmental responsibility go hand-in-hand.