A new biodegradable plastic has won the UK section of the 2019 James Dyson Award. This is an international design award that celebrates the next generation of design engineers. However this is no normal bio-plastic, people can make it from waste from the fishing industry and red algae!
Created by university of Sussex design graduate, Lucy Hughes, this creative new material has been named MarinaTex and is an alternative to certain single use plastics. This new material is so bio degradable that it can decompose simply from the temperatures within home compost bins! This is unique as most bio-plastics require certain facilities and specific high temperatures in order to break them down. This will often result in the procedure bring an expensive one, whereas MarinaTex plastic will break down for little to no cost! Creating this bio-plastic, as well as being extremely renewable, is said to be very cost effective. This is due to it utilising readily available waste materials as opposed to fresh bought ones.
Lucy is currently working on getting grants and permissions to bring her unique product foreword. Hopefully we’ll see this renewable alternative put into use soon!