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fast , with some species growing up to a meter per day . It also doesn ’ t require land and therefore doesn ’ t compete with food crops , and perhaps its best attribute is being completely biodegradable and often edible , so there ’ s no chance of leaving something in nature that wasn ’ t already there .
“ We subsequently began exploring the wider applications including a coating that is used for takeaway food containers . Typically , these containers , even if they are cardboard , need a thin layer of plastic inside to withstand the fat and the moisture of the food . We realized we could use seaweed to do that job , holding hot , greasy food inside of the cardboard . That ’ s something that is quite plug and play for the industry , which means we can use existing factories that were previously applying plastic coating onto cardboard and replace that with our seaweed . We now have a set of manufacturing partners that are continuously producing this on their existing machinery , which allows us to make millions of units and bring them to the market
without having to build brand new facilities . Because of this approach we have been able to scale this product very quickly and have been able to replace large numbers of single use plastic products already .”
Pierre dives into some of the specifics of the company ’ s product portfolio : “ In terms of our product lines , we have the edible category , which are products as close to a fruit as possible . While on its own this may not be the format that replaces all single use plastics , it is a really differentiated solution that challenges the status quo . It is able to do things that plastics cannot . The sector we have scaled up the most is takeaway food containers , as mentioned . Beyond that we are actively exploring which existing technologies we can adapt and replace with a non-plastic solution . Some examples include film extrusion , as we have a formulation for a flexible film that can replace PVOH ( polyvinyl alcohol ). This is a soluble plastic that has many uses , including detergent pods and capsules .
“ We are also working with some key partners on injection molding , primarily
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