Submitted Ideas

Seaweed Farming

Indonesia is the world’s fifth largest contributor to GHG and the second biggest contributor to plastic waste, responsible for about 15% of all the plastic pollution in the ocean. At the same time, the country is also the largest producer of red seaweed, whose carbohydrate element is the key ingredient for bioplastics. While new technological advances have blown the field of bioplastics wide open, seaweed holds the most promise due to its versatility and the sheer scale of current production. Despite their potential, most early stage technologies face common challenges of scalability and market penetration. At the same time, 80% of seaweed is processed outside of Indonesia and the lengthy supply chains mean that farmers see a small fraction of the profit. Seaweed to Plastic - The Journey aims to tackle these issues by studying and proposing solutions for the improvement of the supply chain of seaweed based bioplastics in Indonesia. This research will be supported by interviews to ongoing projects on seaweed based bioplastics and seaweed farmers across Indonesia. A case study will be selected and a scenario analysis will be carried out to develop recommendation on innovative business models for the development of the seaweed based bioplastics supply chain in Indonesia. Seaweed to Plastic - The Journey constitutes the first stage of ideation of a platform for support of early stage projects on seaweed based bioplastics aiming at scaling up their production.