Seaweed Dreams,
Plastic Realities
Artist Lichen Kelp was tired of creating waste. In her job as an Australian textile maker, she experienced what she describes as “non-stop sustainability issues”, where at every point in the process there was some sort of ethical or environmental compromise being made. Over time, the sense of guilt and responsibility became too much to bear, and she had to walk away in search of something that would do more good than harm.
She began to look at natural ways of making things that people needed. Non-extractive, non-pollutive, net-positive. The term bioplastic appeared frequently in her research, a technology that promised a carbon-neutral replacement to polluting products with materials that return to the earth, but she soon discovered that things were far more complex: not only did these outcomes rely on circular systems that did not exist, they could be just as environmentally damaging as conventional plastics and usually resulted in the same outcomes, degrading in oceans and landscapes as toxic microplastic waste.
Kelp’s material of choice was seaweed. She had heard about Scottish communities who would leave seaweed outside their homes as a weather device. Dry seaweed will shrink to a brittle husk, but it can just as quickly rehydrate to its original state. It is so permeable and sensitive to water that it can detect atmospheric changes in humidity, and so a dried piece hanging from your door can soften and grow to indicate coming storms.
Seaweed brought the artist to the beaches of Morocco, watching local woman harvest red algae into sacks by hand. This plant-like marine organism is extracted for its agar, a gel-like substance found in the cell walls of the algae and used in ways, from a stabiliser for Petri dishes to a thickener in ice cream. And with this discovery began Kelp’s short-lived but deep journey into the world of bioplastics.
Harnessing dual interests in design and nature, as well as her desire to find truly sustainable ways of living, Kelp’s research was grounded in the idea of replacing products that pollute and poison with ones that would come from and go back to the earth. And, importantly, they should be able to be made at home, emphasising culture over consumption. On the surface, it felt as if she had found the perfect union of sustainable product and technology, but she quickly found that she was again coming up against the same problems that had driven her to venture into new territories in the first place.
Kelp is not alone in her desire to find solutions to the ever-growing catastrophe of plastic pollution. She talks about climate grief and the weight of the problem. In under 100 years, we have produced more than 8 billion tonnes of material, enough to cover the surface of Australia with a crust 20 centimetres thick. An entire continent, but not for living. This is one that strangles life, inhibits growth, and rearranges the natural order of things. A toxic continent, omnipresent in land, sea, and air. But as we are discovering, it is not simply in our homes and environments: it is in our bodies, travelling through our veins and settling in our organs. It is breaking through the blood-brain barrier. We are finding traces of it in our children before they are born.
The scale of the problem is so immense that in 2022, the United Nations established a global treaty to address plastic pollution, with measures that include phasing out single-use plastics, formalising circular systems, and transitioning to alternative materials.
Of all the proposed measures, Bioplastics are a class of alternative materials gaining significant traction in the marketplace, largely due to a combination of eco-friendly marketing, industrial scalability, and similarity to their petrochemical cousins. Bioplastics currently represent around 2 per cent of global plastic production, but that figure has doubled since 2010 and is expected to reach 20 per cent or more over the next decade. This rapid growth places real urgency around understanding this complex and easily misunderstood category.
As Kelp experienced, on the surface, bioplastics look like change, but behind the labelling many are revealed to be traditional plastics in plant-based disguises. Their origins differ, but their ends remain the same, and without a deeper level of understanding we risk preserving the status quo through a misplaced faith in innovation.
There is no universal definition for bioplastics; however, they can be broadly understood as an umbrella term for plant-based polymer materials in the same way we understand plastics as an umbrella term for petroleum-based polymers.
While there are around seven major types of traditional plastics, there are three main types of bioplastics: Bio-based Plastics, Biodegradable Bioplastics, and Next-Gen Bio-Polymers. Where traditional plastics are derived from fossil fuels, bioplastics are made from living organic matter, or biomass, which includes as plants, algae, and fungi. It is easy to mount an argument for using biomass as a source material. It is renewable where petroleum is not and generally produces less harmful emissions. Biomass can even act as a carbon sink, removing greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere. In 2024, the CSIRO released a report stating that “Biobased plastics can offer low-carbon, renewable alternatives to a wide range of conventional plastics and decouple plastic from fossil fuels.” Yet it also concedes that “bioplastics are still plastics and, as with conventional plastics, a circular economy approach to their use is required.” It is here that the issue becomes more nuanced, and the case for bioplastics less compelling.
Most Bio-based Plastics are functionally identical to petroleum-based plastics, making the term a change in nomenclature rather than chemistry. While they originate from biomass, that origin is erased through chemical transformation. The organic structure is irrecoverably altered, meaning that at end of life it will degrade into macro, micro, and nano plastics, directly contributing to our growing 353 million metric tonnes of annual plastic waste.
Certified Biodegradable Bioplastics do exist, but the term is misleading. One could be forgiven for imagining that this means a product can break down in nature; however, this is not possible due to their industrial processing and structural transformation. Instead, these materials must be broken down in factories through hydro, chemical, and UV treatments followed by anaerobic digestion. To meet biodegradability standards, a product must achieve 90 percent breakdown in under 180 days.
Dr Jordi Nelis, a microplastics researcher at James Cook University, explains the core contradiction:
For those not biodegradable, recycling is the next best option for end-of-life management. But as with petroleum-based plastics, the process is highly industrialised, toxic, and far less efficient than advertised. Fewer than 10 percent of plastics are recycled globally due to inadequate infrastructure, contamination, and the simple economic reality that new plastic remains cheaper to produce. Even when recycled, both plastics and bioplastics downcycle, degrading with each pass and requiring virgin material to regain stability. Inevitably, they reach a point where further processing is impossible, and landfill again becomes their final destination.
The newest category, Next-Gen Bio-Polymers, offers more promise. These materials are sourced from algae or bacteria and created through industrial fermentation. Products such as Australia’s Uluu claim to be fully biodegradable, home compatible, and marine safe: able to break down without leaving harmful residues. Yet deeper investigation into this emerging field reveals questions around their net climate benefit, from agricultural extraction and processing emissions to scalability. These innovations may serve as valuable additives but are unlikely to transform the industry at the scale required.
As the CSIRO report indicates, keeping plastics and bioplastics out of the environment and improving their impact on climate requires more than just sustainable sources and improved technologies. They require circular economies: an idea that sounds convincing but often fails to be realised. The concept has become central to bioplastic marketing, inviting customers to become “part of the story” through the act of returning products by mail, dropping them at collection points, or simply adding them to kerbside recycling. But these extra steps rely on motivation, action, and correct processing, highly variable things that when not achieved render the circle a dot, beginning and ending at purchase. And this, the data suggests, is exactly what is happening.
The persistence of plastic, whether fossil-based or bio-based, reflects not only economic opportunity but entrenched cultural habits. We have built systems of overproduction and overconsumption that are fast, cheap, and largely hidden from public view. We must also acknowledge that it is simply a material that we have placed an incredibly low cultural value on. We don’t actually care about plastic. This entrenched perception further underscores the folly of replacing one type of plastic for another. We use plastics for our most basic and disposable purposes. Over the course of our plastic century, we have conditioned ourselves to see it as inherently expendable. Unlike metal, glass, or wood, plastic is not an heirloom material and reuse is an inherently limited proposition. Our lack of care or responsibility for the material stays fixed while our consumption continues to grow.
For Kelp, the entire problem boils down to the fact that the solution to our problem cannot be solved by the same means that got us here. We cannot innovate our way out of the mess, we can only move towards better habits
For all the good they promise at face value, bioplastics fall short when measured against their full environmental impact, while circular approaches to managing end-of-life remain more aspirational than real. Worse still, continued investment from consumers and producers risks delaying necessary radical action, allowing the production of destructive materials to continue under the guise of sustainability. If the goal is to end plastic pollution, we must examine these uncomfortable realities and commit to real change: beyond alternative materials, towards ways of living that move beyond plastic itself.