The Weird Balls (& Much More) That May Just Save The Ocean

In Mexico alone, over 400,000 tons were expected to wash up this year and cost the hotel sector more than $100 million annually to clean up the coast in spots like Tulum, Cancun, and Cozumel. But in the vein of turning lemons into lemonade, researchers (who use science) have been engineering ways to turn the natural waste into fuel and thus incentivizing the collection by creating a usable biogas (Yay, science! Yay, capitalism?!). 

Throughout the region the emphasis has been to stop viewing it as a pollution problem and start viewing it as a resource. This can be via a transformation into a physical product, such as Sargapanel or Sargabox, both of which are fire-retardants and can be used for construction and packaging, respectively, and thus lock in the carbon for the life-cycle of the product, which, miraculously, can be recycled. A lot to unpack there, including potential carbon credit revenue, for more information check out more from the University of Mexico.

In Barbados, Britney McKenzie developed a method to process their unsolicited sargassum by mixing it with two other local waste products – manure and wastewater from rum distilleries—and letting it ferment, thus creating a biogas. On an island where fuel is incredibly expensive, and rum wastewater, seaweed, and manure, are in abundance, this may just be the Barbados’ hottest cocktail since the Rum Punch. 

In Puerto Rico, a San Francisco based biomaterials company, Sway, is working with local agencies, Invest Puerto Rico and Newlab, to refine a pilot project designed to connect every step of the supply chain. From harvesting at sea, before it arrives on shore, to extracting the valuable polymers to create new materials. It should be noted that there are also efforts to convert other problematic materials, like plastic waste and end-of-life tires, of which, there are a staggering 18,000 tires disposed of daily in Puerto Rico. Perhaps they’ll take a page from the book of IndoSole, the Bali-based footwear company that turns discarded tires into sandals. 

A friend once told me hunger is the best sauce, meaning, necessity is the best the catalyst for change. While large mainland nations such as the United States are more insulated from the cascading effects of climate change and plastic pollution, islands like Puerto Rico, Barbados, and Bali, face a much different reality. One where there simply isn’t enough space to throw everything “away”, and where their shores are subject to the maelstrom of global trash in the seas. 

Even mainland nations with ample space and considerable resources, such as Mexico and Brazil, are reeling from the the onslaught of plastic pollution and resorting to homegrown solutions, without much help from the “developed” world, nor the behemoth petrochemical conglomerates, who are vastly responsible for the situation.  

In Chile, local surfers have taken to mining the local landfills to recycle everything from trash to valuable metals, and thus spurned a micro-movement for good. Also in Chile, local fisherman pull ghost nets from the sea to be recycled into NetPlus, a product born from the efforts of the California surfers who started Bureo. 

In essence, there’s heaps of positive developments and radical innovation happening at scale throughout the world, it really is cause for celebration. If only the overarching trend of media wasn’t to sensationalize doom and gloom, we may all have more cause for hope. 

May the mighty Neptune let his plastic-laden balls rise from the sea and may the clever humans of the world not give up, not now, not ever.