The next steps for commercial readiness: PlantSea Pods (a novel seaweed-based biodegradable material)

目前的项目旨在利用上一届青年创新者奖期间进行的重大技术开发和研究，为个人护理产品开发可持续和可生物降解的包装材料。该项目将通过专利保护这一创新，调查和优化产品及其大规模生产，并进行必要的测试，所有这些都是为了促进PlantSea-Pack的商业化和开发。PlantSea-Pack是一种不含塑料的可溶性胶囊，可溶于水，旨在封装洗发水和个人护理产品。PlantSea-Pack通过采用终身可重复使用的瓶子概念，促进个人护理用品（洗发水，护发素，洗涤剂）和其他液体（清洁液）的再填充使用，促进包装的再利用，支持塑料公约目标的实现。该产品将实现塑料公约的多个目标：a）提供新的非塑料产品设计，并研究相关商业模式的可行性和可扩展性，以提供个人护理成分。这将消除数百万个不可回收的塑料部件，例如通常在瓶子中发现的喷雾泵和瓶盖。这将减少环境中塑料废物的数量。为英国塑料协议的目标1做出贡献，该目标旨在使100%的塑料包装可重复使用、可回收或可堆肥。B）为减少回收基础设施的压力做出贡献，c）提高认识，提供关于减少塑料使用和重新利用的可能方法的教育材料，d）建立一个强大的模型，用于评估可持续性，并防止用不太可持续的材料替代塑料，使用完整的生命周期和整体系统的观点。

The current project aims to build on significant technical developments and research undertaken during the previous Young Innovators award to develop a sustainable and biodegradable packaging material for personal care products. This project will protect this innovation through patenting, investigate and optimise the product and it manufacturing at scale, and carry out essential testing, all to facilitate commercialisation and exploitation of PlantSea-Pack.PlantSea-Pack is a plastic-free soluble pod that dissolves in water, designed to encapsulate shampoo and personal care products. PlantSea-Pack fosters packaging re-use, by adopting the concept of a re-usable bottle-for-life and promoting the usage of refills of personal care goods (shampoo, conditioner, detergents) and other fluids (cleaning liquids), supporting the delivery of Plastic Pact targets.The product will deliver multiple objectives of the Plastic Pact:a) Provide a new non-plastic product design and investigate the feasibility and scalability of an associated business model to deliver personal care ingredients. This will enable the elimination of millions of non recyclable plastic parts, for example the spray pumps and caps, commonly found in bottles. This will decrease the volume of plastic waste components found in the environment. Contributing to target 1 of the UK plastic pact, which aims for 100% of plastic packaging to be re-usable, recyclable or compostable.b) Contribute to reducing the strain on recycling infrastructures, by eliminating complex packaging formats and helping to fulfil the recyclability of the remaining plastic packaging.c) Raise awareness and provide educational materials on possible approaches for plastic use reduction and re-use to achieve desired changes in consumer behaviour.d) Build a robust model for assessing sustainability and preventing substitution of plastics by less sustainable materials, using a complete life cycle and overall systems perspective.