LOLIWARE is now shipping its first product, the LOLIWARE Straw, made from their proprietary seaweed-based plastic alternative. Derived from a form of carbon-sequestering kelp, this material comes out of an 18 month R&D period with leading interdisciplinary scientists, led by LOLIWARE CEO Chelsea Fawn Briganti. Material Connexion has listed this new material as the world's first edible bioplastic.
"Every piece of plastic ever created still exists," Briganti said. "There are five trillion pieces of plastic in our oceans; an estimated ten million tons of plastic is produced every second. Single use plastics should never be built to last, they should be designed to disappear."
The material looks, feels and performs like plastic, but is made from food-grade materials and is 'designed to disappear' as it can be composted or eaten. Should LOLIWARE's straws end up in the ocean, they would completely dissolve without harmful effects to marine life.
Unlike other plastic-straw replacements, the LOLIWARE Straw can withstand over 18 hours of continuous use and is made with seaweed, a regenerative resource which sequesters C02, versus paper straws which require tree-based resources and only last up to an hour.
With the innovative material used to make the LOLIWARE Straw, the company is taking its first major step toward eliminating all single-use plastics. This particular seaweed is also dramatically more sustainable than paper-based alternatives; if the product were to scale globally, less than a percent of the kelp that exists would be farmed for production, and it regrows rapidly.
Photo: Courtesy of LOLIWARE