Reimagining the plastic life cycle and waste management requires new and innovative means to redesign, re-cycle, and re-distribute plastics across a variety of industries.
The fashion and clothing industry is one area that has increasingly recognized plastic use and is starting to rethink the the contribution to the problem and opportunities for innovative solutions--all of which we need to reduce the overall consumption, use, disposal and transport of plastic waste to ISLANDS countries and communities.
The designer Tom Ford along with the nonprofit Lonely Whale powered a global competition to source and scale marine-safe and biologically degradable alternatives to traditional thin-film plastic made from fossil fuels--of which the fashion and beverage industry contributes to massively.
Winners were announced after rigorous testing across environmental, economic and social metrics for sustainability, with testing done in the Caribbean and elsewhere. And all of the options include seaweed as base to the alternatives of thin-film plastic.
The winners are:
Sway — a US-based company offering seaweed-based, home-compostable replacements for regenerative thin-film plastic packaging at scale;

Zerocircle — an India-based company making wildlife and ocean-safe packaging materials from locally cultivated seaweed that will dissolve harmlessly in the ocean after use;

Notpla — a London-based startup inspired by the way nature encapsulates liquids, on a mission to make plastic waste disappear by pioneering natural-membrane packaging that uses seaweed as an alternative to single-use plastic.

Check out the article and learn more about the organizations redesigning for biodegradable plastic.