Up-cycling industrial waste to produce home-compostable biocomposites for sustainable cosmetic pots

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SymbioTex, an innovative biomaterials company led by Olivia Simpson (B.Sc.), aims to develop cutting edge biobased solutions to replace single use plastics, non-recyclable plastic-co-biomaterial blends and industrially compostable materials. SymbioTex's seaweed-based solution (more than 75% seaweed) aims to displace single use packaging in the cosmetics sector, which accounts for more than 120 billion units every year globally; most of which are not actually recyclable.With the cosmetic market projected to generate US$ 560.5 billion by 2030, the packaging issues are bound to get worse. SymbioTex aims to develop and commercialise truly sustainable solutions to the issues faced by our society. This project aims to explore and further assess novel seaweed based biocomposites to provide carbon neutral/negative\* sustainable alternatives towards the heavily polluting cosmetics industry. The lack of monoplastic recyclable solutions suggests that fully home compostable alternatives are needed to satisfy current efforts in mitigating plastic packaging. By creating a seaweed-based thermoplastic-like material which can be scaled up to rapidly meet the demands of the cosmetic industry and beyond.SymbioTex has teamed up with Ishga, a Scottish based seaweed cosmetic company to evaluate both the technical and aesthetic properties of the patented material for cosmetic packaging.This project aims to push the technical boundaries of current biobased solutions and fulfil consumer requirements to pilot cosmetic packaging, the cosmetic industry has a 9% recycling rate, and thus is in desperate need of sustainable solutions.\*Depending on cooking oil and seaweed suppliers, the current solution might not be net negative yet, however if local collection of waste oils and production of seaweed is achieved; net-negative goals can be met.