ERA-NET: (FORSTERK) From seaweed to bioplastics: Challenges and opportunities across the value chain

The project PlastiSea (2020-2023) aimed to, and succeeded in developing bioplastic materials based on sustainable processing of brown algae. PlastiSea developed new methods for processing of seaweed, new materials for packaging as well as advanced nanomaterials from different fractions of the biomass, demonstrated manufacture in large scale, and investigated environmental effects of the developed processes and products. The project PlastiSea_diss will utilize these results to reach a greater audience within research, industry and other stakeholders in the form of targeted communication actions. This will contribute to increasing the impact and societal relevance of PlastiSea, and initiative new collaborations within research and development for the project partners.

The PlastiSea project (ERA BlueBio, 2020-2023) has gained a large amount of attention due to its societal relevance, wide impact and innovative nature. The project has published important data and been active in other dissemination platform, but have not yet realized its full potential for impact and outreach. The PlastiSea project is a good candidate for expanded communication efforts in the sense that it covers nearly the entire value chain from production of raw materials, to manufacturing and end-of-life characterization of materials. Thus, it spans across many scientific disciplines and stakeholder groups, and the problems of plastic pollutions are more apparent to the public than ever. Furthermore, addressing the entire value chain has provided unique data to holistic environmental analyses, which usually must rely on several disconnected sources. Now, as the project is approaching its end, the consortium has compiled sufficient data to tell this story in its entirety, highlighting the opportunities and challenges at each step of the value chain in an unbiased manner.