We speak a lot about the problem with single-use plastics on The Wellness Feed. But, we also know the importance of highlighting the solutions- buying reusable, recycling, and supporting the innovators and companies creating more avant-garde solutions. For Earth Day, we’re highlighting how the winner of the prestigious Tom Ford Plastic Innovation Prize Winner uses seaweed to design plastic-like materials that could replace the 180 billion plastic bags currently used by the fashion industry.
Julia Marsh, Co-Founder of the startup Sway, uses seaweed to create replacements for plastics. She shared with TWF what goes on behind the scenes in designing a solution for plastic pollution. As the winner of the nine-month-long competition and recipient of the $1.2 million Prize purse sponsored by Tom Ford Beauty, The Estée Lauder Companies, and Trousdale Ventures, she also shares how long it will be until we can finally say ‘goodbye’ to plastic and ‘hello’ to biodegradable seaweed bags.
Can you explain what it is that you created for the competition?
Sway creates seaweed-based, home-compostable replacements for plastics. As the basis of all our products, seaweed is the ingredient that enables our material to mimic the compelling qualities of plastic without the downsides. We combine this abundant feedstock with a few other renewable (aka: plant-based!) ingredients to produce materials that decompose into healthy soil after use.
For the TOM FORD Plastic Innovation Prize powered by Lonely Whale, we tested our flagship product- a flexible film suited to package apparel, accessories, and other dry goods. It can be used to make polybags, pouches, product windows, and more.
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By winning 1st place in the Prize, Sway outperformed our competition across all judging categories: scale, cost, performance, biological degradation, and environmental & social impact alike. The Prize is the most detailed, rigorous vetting that has been conducted to date by our global peers in biomaterials, offering great insight into what it will take to make petroleum-based plastics a thing of the past!
How does your product mitigate the environmental impact of plastic and fossil fuels?
Every day, 8 million pieces of plastic pollution find their way into the ocean. Plastic waste has been found on the world’s most remote islands, its deepest seafloors, and its highest peaks. But plastic isn’t just about pollution. Plastic is created from petroleum and emits significant amounts of greenhouse gasses at every phase of its life: extraction, transport, refining, manufacturing, and after use. By 2050, plastic’s combined GHG emissions could reach over 56 gigatons, nearly 10% of the remaining carbon budget.
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Sway’s 100% biobased packaging shifts demand away from oil and toward a renewable resource: seaweed. Seaweed farms are minimal-input — requiring no land, fresh water, or fertilizers to grow — and provide valuable ecological benefits like increased biodiversity, nutrient cycling, and acidification reversal. New scientific studies even suggest that seaweed farms can store substantial amounts of living and sequestered carbon. After use, Sway products break down into healthy soil in home and industrial compost environments, returning nutrients back to the planet without polluting in the process. In this way, our materials are truly circular, replenishing life from sea to soil.
What are some of the obstacles that make it difficult for industries to adopt seaweed-based plastics on a large scale?
The plastic industry is massive, with nearly 180 billion thin-film plastic polybags used annually by the fashion industry alone. The production system for plastics runs like a well-oiled machine, and for a solution to fully disrupt this industry, it needs to be comparable across scale, cost, and performance for brands and manufacturers alike.
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The TOM FORD Plastic Innovation Prize centered on this very challenge! Winning 1st place in the Prize helped to validate Sway’s capacity to meet stringent standards for scale, cost, and performance. This holistic criterion is generating excitement and trust among a broader network of manufacturers and brands who are eager to adopt sustainable packaging solutions due to shifting consumer trends, emerging policies, and the genuine desire to do better for our planet. With support from the forthcoming Prize Accelerator, Sway will bridge relationships with industry-leading packaging manufacturers, earning us the precious line time and rapid feedback needed to optimize our materials for scale.
What can consumers expect from seaweed-based plastics?
Sway uses the natural polymers abundantly found in different types of seaweed as the basis of all our material formulations. These extracted polymers, or “phycocolloids,” mimic the compelling qualities of plastic, without the downsides. Our material looks and feels much like plastic – transparent, smooth, and durable! It can be customized in a range of natural colors and textures, from green and speckled, to blue and translucent. You can expect to begin seeing Sway material used as polybags, pouches, and product windows for apparel, accessories, and home goods. And because we get asked frequently: no, Sway’s seaweed-based packaging does not smell!
How do you dispose of Sway products?
Composting is the way to go! Throw it in your home compost, green bin, or any other compost method available. Sway products typically decompose within 1-2 months in home compost, or within 48 days in an industrial compost facility. If you don’t compost, we recommend looking into local options — community gardens, farm programs, or private services are often available with a little research.
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If no composting options exist, you can dispose of our material in your waste bin. Please don’t recycle; your local recycling facility thanks you!
What’s next for Sway?
Through the forthcoming Prize Accelerator starting this summer, Prize winners will receive extensive support from Lonely Whale and partners to facilitate successful and significant market adoption of our products.
Alongside our progress in scale through the Prize, we are thrilled to share that Sway’s flagship product is debuting to the public this spring, starting with a limited edition Earth Day launch in partnership with lifestyle brand Graf Lantz! We will continue to launch products in the coming months with key brands, gaining valuable end-user feedback and shaping an enabling environment for the adoption of our seaweed-based packaging. We are excited to unite with our customers on vibrant, storytelling-driven campaigns that engage the broader public and build buzz that evolves the perception of what packaging can be.
We are excited to continue building a community invested in oceans, regeneration, and biomaterials as we expand our product offering, grow our team, and collaborate with innovation partners. Together, we can make regenerative packaging the norm — together, Sway-ing the future.