Seaweed Packaging from Sway / CEO Julia Marsh

https://swaythefuture.com/

What if plastic was good for the planet? 
would you compost packaging in your garden? 
Is seaweed the future of sustainable packaging? 

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Transcript

Cory Connors: 0:31

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors today's guest is Julia Marsh. She is the c e o and Co-founder of Sway. Hi, Julia. How are you?

Julia Marsh: 0:40

I'm doing so well. How

Cory Connors: 0:42

are you doing? Oh, really good. It's, it's great to meet you. I'm excited to, to talk with you. I've heard great things about your company and what you're doing, but I'd love to hear your story. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what got you into this crazy.

Julia Marsh: 0:56

Crazy business. Yeah. I, I'm a designer by trade, so I spent about a decade building brand and packaging systems for consumer goods companies, for design studios, technology companies. And usually I was the person responsible for bringing the materials and oftentimes plastics into the equation. So very acutely aware of a lot of the challenges that brands face when they're trying to move away from plastics. And. Was prompted to just ask this question, you know, what's a designer's role in protecting the planet? And that's how I came to found Sway and how I came to better understand a lot of the challenges we face. As, as, yeah, we're we're moving towards more sustainable packaging.

Cory Connors: 1:38

That is a great question and it is a great point. Who, , whose responsibility is this in the long run? Is it the manufacturer? Is it the designer, is it the consumer for buying the product? Is it the municipality for allowing that material to be made? You know, there's, this question comes up all the time and the answer is, well that depends. I. Yeah,

Julia Marsh: 1:59

it's, it's everybody love to hear your thoughts. Yeah. I think waste is a design flaw and I think a lot of people agree on that, you know? Yeah. There is some study that said that 80% of all environmental waste is determined at the design stage. And there are some particularly good examples of poor design decisions that directly lead to a lot of the largest problems. The one that we focus on at Sway is thin film. Plastics bags and wrappers and pouches are designed to last forever. When they're often used for a matter of moments. And I think that that's possibly the most emblematic of just a poor design decision. They make up a Yeah, they make up a ton of ways. They can't be recycled. They fly in the natural spaces. So that's really where my head's at. But there's so many good examples of just, yeah, poor, poor design and good design being kind of the, the answer for, for that harm. Right.

Cory Connors: 2:53

Yeah. Well said. And I'm, I'm interested to, to hear about Sway and what, what you do that's different than that. Can you tell us about your.

Julia Marsh: 3:01

Yes. So we are a startup, a biomaterials company based in California, in the Bay Area, and we use the natural polymers that are abundantly found in different types of seaweed to replace thin film plastic. And we make these wow compostable replacements that are designed for existing infrastructure. So working with the plastic industry to convert over to home compostable materials. Mm-hmm. The reasons that we work with seaweed are many, and I know that we'll get the chance to talk through them . Yeah. But at a super high level, like we are very inspired by the circular economy as most of us are. And when you look at those three principles within the circular economy, designing out waste, keeping materials in use, and regenerating nature. As a designer, I was really interested in investing in that third pillar and sea. We. Is possibly the most regenerative feedstock on earth and really enables us to embody that third pillar by embedding it into the material. Wow,

Cory Connors: 4:02

that's a big statement. I love it. I'd love to hear that. I've heard really great things about seaweed, but I haven't heard it called that. So I'm e excited to hear a little bit more about how you acquire this material and how regenerative it is and how sustainable it is. Can you, can you walk us through that process a little

Julia Marsh: 4:20

bit? Yes. So first I'll ask Do you like seaweed, , ? What are, what are your personal experiences with seaweed?

Cory Connors: 4:28

As far as to eat it or in, in packaging.

Julia Marsh: 4:33

eating it. Maybe, maybe finding it at the beach, like mm-hmm., where, where do what's, you know, temperature check. How are we feeling about seaweed at the

Cory Connors: 4:40

moment? I think it's got a lot of potential , especially in the packaging space. I'm hearing very big things from some, some very big companies that are using seaweed as a packaging al material. So I'm very excited about it. I think it's credible incredibly important for the planet, that's for sure. And to, to encourage the growth of it is one exciting part of this process. I.

Julia Marsh: 5:07

Well, I'm glad to hear that's where you land. There's dozens of companies emerging, starting to use seaweed as biomaterial feedstock, but most people just know it from sushi or just know it as, as the sticky stuff that's on the beach, so, right. I always like to start there. Seaweed is a, is a wonder material and I always like to remind folks the seaweed's been growing on this earth for about a billion years. And for a billion years, it's been providing nearly half the oxygen that we breathe on Earth. It's been providing habitat for biodiverse life. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of species of seaweed. So much diversity grows on every coastline in the world. And our, our goal is just to extend the positive impacts of sea.. What's really cool about it is that you can farm it and it's been farmed for hundreds of years for use and sushi and, and pharmaceuticals, and it's used as a thickening agent and a bunch of different cosmetics and an ice cream and all, all sorts of things. Oh, wow. What makes it compelling and as a feedstock is that it, you don't need fresh water and you don't. arable land, and it grows really fast, like up to 60 times faster than land crops. Wow. But then in addition to that, it has the, these ecological and social benefits that I was describing where it's. Encouraging Biodiverse life. It's sequestering carbon, it's generating oxygen, it's purifying the ocean. And at the same time, seaweed farms provide millions of jobs to coastal communities, really climate resilient employment opportunities. So there are practical economic reasons for investing in seaweed, farming, and seaweed as a feed stock. And then there are also these wonderful climate benefits as.

Cory Connors: 6:56

That's exciting to hear. Now, this might be a crazy question, but is the seaweed farmed in the ocean or Oh yes. Do they make, do they pull it out and, and have like pools of sea water near the ocean?

Julia Marsh: 7:13

I should have started there. So seaweed is farmed in a variety of ways. Yeah. our favorite and the way that we source our material is by working with responsible ocean farmers. So envision, depending on the species, it's, it's grown in different ways, but the easiest to explain is there is a rope. It is bathed in baby kelp spores. That rope is suspended between buoys and the kelp grows down like. Oh wow. That, that's one method. Other types of seaweed regenerate every three to four weeks. So you take a little, essentially a little branch of seaweed. Yeah, you'll hear it to a little string and it grows into a, an adult seaweed. And then you take a little sprig and it grows and it grows and it regenerates over and over and over again. Very low input really high reward. And then when you harvest, You're either giving it a haircut and drying it on the beach, or you're just taking some of those, those those adult or fully formed seaweeds that can be then regener regenerated. You can grow seaweed on land in big pools. and that's how it's done. Especially in California along the coast and in Oregon. We try to work with ocean farms because that way we're contributing nutrients back to the ocean and we're providing a lot more opportunity for biodiversity.

Cory Connors: 9:12

I like that. I was watching this show on Netflix the other day with Zach I don't remember his name. Zach Efron., yeah. And they were harvesting seaweed for feed for cows. Mm-hmm., because, and you probably saw this show because the, it reduces their methane output by 80. Wow.. Yeah, that's

Julia Marsh: 9:36

incredible. Seaweed has all sorts of uses, so while historically it's been primarily a food source especially in, in, in Asia there are all these emerging solutions that are grounded in new science related to, yeah, helping curb methane emissions and livestock looking. Alternative protein sources. So they're like these emerging alternative meats that are being developed, derived from seaweed. Wow. And then there's, and then there's the packaging as well. So lots of ex Oh, and, and fibers, which is a space we're excited about as well. So looking at alternatives for some of those harmful plastics that make their way into our, into our apparel. There's a lot of stuff seaweed is really good at and a lot of, a lot of sea demands. Seaweed clothes, huh? Yes.,, Cory Connors: you Is that made out of seaweed? Not yet. not yet. But it will be

Cory Connors: 10:24

in process, huh? Yeah. Awesome.. It's exciting to, to replace some of the, the polyester fibers and things like that with a more natural product that's,

Julia Marsh: 10:34

Absolutely. Yeah. And with all this new demand, I think the concern often is what happens to the ocean and is the ocean. Maybe I'm, I'm taking one of your questions, but No, go for it. A a lot of folks become concerned. Why are we extracting this resource from the oceans when it plays such a critical role?, and that's our concern as well. And there is such a thing as wild harvested seaweed, where you're literally just going into naturally growing beds of seaweed and harvesting it. And that can be done sustainably. It's just not what we do. We work with farms and those farms are really highly traceable, so we know exactly what's happening in the water and on land. We have. Community models and cooperative led models that we're excited about where we're able to work really directly with the folks on the ground. To understand exactly what's happening and avoiding any kind of risks of, of like threats to natural ecosystems or any threat to natural food security. And then we also diversify the types of CV that we work with. So we're not just focused on one species, we're constantly trying to tie our success and our scaling. The success and health of the ocean. And I can talk more about that at length, but I just, yeah, I, I, I would share that concern, hearing this idea and not maybe knowing too much about what was happening behind the

Cory Connors: 12:00

scenes. Oh, that's fascinating. And I, and I want to kind of get into the nuts and bolts of how it's made, but I have a one more follow up question. Y you're, you're down in California and there's some serious flooding going on right now. Yeah. Does that affect the the farms of seaweed?

Julia Marsh: 12:19

We work primarily with farms that are based in on the east coast of the states as well as up in Alaska and then throughout central and South America. Unfortunately, in California it is harder to get a permit to farm seaweed than it is to extract oil. So there are not, there's not a huge amount of sea being farmed along the California coast., Cory Connors: it's kind think with California being so environmentally focused on mm-hmm., at least for packaging. I mean, we hear constantly, all the laws are changing. This is, you know, this is illegal now, this is, you know, there's new, new changes. You would think that they would encourage this. It comes from a good place. A lot of these permissions, a around farming sea, we. Are related to conservation and restoration of kelp forests along California's coast. Mm-hmm., I grew up in a Carmel a couple hours south from the Bay Area. Oh wow. Spent a lot of time in tide pools, spent a lot of time checking out kelp forests, and unfortunately, over the past couple of decades, several decades, there's been a boon in the urchin populations, which have decimated vast portions of. Kelp forests, which are vital habitats for a lot of, well, hundreds of species. So the reluctance to farm seaweed along the California coast is tied just to, to a lot of these provisions to better protect and restore those kelp forests.

Cory Connors: 13:53

Hmm. Interesting. Well, that, that sounds like a good reason I'll buy

Julia Marsh: 13:57

that. This is becoming the Marine, Marine Biology Podcast, not the Sustainable Packaging podcast,. Cory Connors: It's all, and it's so important. I want to hear some, some kind of high level processes, so, mm-hmm., you, let's say the, the seaweeds out of the ocean. It's, it's dried. Now what do you do? After that. Sure. So seaweed is rich in polysaccharides or some species are, are especially rich in polysaccharides, which are essentially the natural polymers that are present already within different types of seaweed. Mm-hmm.. And what we do is we work with partner farms and partner processors to extract those polysaccharides into a powder form, which we then use in our formulations. So my team develops valuable material ip. That essentially combines that seaweed substrate, that that polysaccharide with other natural additives, sugars, and starches. And then we can either cast or extrude that formulation into films, which we then turn into packaging. And here's kind of an example of, of our films. This is a role of seaweed film. Oh

Cory Connors: 15:08

wow. Is that a shrink film or a stretch?

Julia Marsh: 15:10

This is designed for poly bags and Okay. Shopping bags and other types of tin film packaging. We can also create colors and textures using the seaweed, so, oh wow. This

Cory Connors: 15:23

is beautiful.

Julia Marsh: 15:24

Yeah. Colorful and maybe conveys I'm made from seaweed. We're doing a lot of customization work with partners right now to kind of tell that story.

Cory Connors: 15:32

That's really cool. So it's, it's ground up and it becomes a powder and then you mix it up in, into pellet form or something that can be melted down into the extruders or the blow molding or the other machines, right?

Julia Marsh: 15:46

There's a number of ways that we can design our formulations to plug into existing plastic infrastructure. So the idea is develop a portfolio of materials that helps address these various plastic challenges, starting with film and starting with conventional film production equipment, and then expanding from there.

Cory Connors: 16:06

That's really exciting. So most of that material that would make poly bags that I've worked with in, in my career is called linear low density polyethylene. What would you call your

Julia Marsh: 16:19

material? It's very similar to an L D P E or an O P P. That's the foundational material, but it is entirely bio-based and primarily seaweed derived. So it's a, a new generation of materials in that, in that family.

Cory Connors: 16:36

Interesting. So it could be, could it be recycled with low density polyethylene

Julia Marsh: 16:41

material? It's designed for compost, so, right. You wanna mix it in with your food scraps. Put it in your backyard Compost bin. Industrial compost. Right. One of the founding reasons for focusing on films is just the incredibly low recycling rate and the high likelihood that these materials float out of landfill and into natural spaces. So having visited MEFs here in California and just knowing that thin films are pulled out of recycling facilities already, yeah, we thought this was a particularly good application for a bio-based. Very, very

Cory Connors: 17:18

true, very, very important to re remember that low numbers right now with that plastics recycling, and hopefully that improves. But I, I really see this as, as a, as a part of the future of the solution. Same. So do, do your customers make sure that they are informing their customers of what to do with this.

Julia Marsh: 17:43

I think communications is the key to getting folks on board with new materials and new systems. I agree. I have a design background. I love an opportunity to, to message, to bring folks into making, making them feel like they're a part of this environmental movement. Maybe even if they didn't care before. So creative storytelling in addition to just really prominently saying, this is sea. We. Please put me on the compost bin paired with the, the appropriate certifications. T U V B P I, et cetera, I think is how we both dispel a lack of trust a concern for greenwashing, as well as just increasing the likelihood that the material actually gets composted. and part of that is consumer education, but the majority of it falls on the brand to appropriately match the material with an application that's likely to get composted. So the Holy Grill's food packaging and on that pyramid of likely to be composted, food packaging is right up there and that's where we're headed. It's more intuitive and user friendly. I.

Cory Connors: 18:48

And when you say food packaging, you're talking about maybe a standup pouch or what kinds of foods would, would be appropriately packaged?

Julia Marsh: 18:57

Pouches, wrappers? I'm thinking my dream , how I'll know that sway is successful is when we've, when we're packaging like a Snickers bar wrapper. That's my dream. multilayer laminates. Oh, I'm so excited. Like if we can do a cliff bar or a Snickers wrapper. That is, that is success. I'll be happy.

Cory Connors: 19:19

I'll talk to my friend that works at the Cliff Bar Company. He's please, he's a brilliant man. Asit just, just incredible person. Oh, I appreciate that. I'll mention your story to him. He would love that. Well,

Julia Marsh: 19:33

I think it makes a lot of sense, you know, especially these snacks and, and candies that we take out into nature when we're on backpacking trips. Yeah. We're out in nature. Why are we generating stuff that could potentially last there as waste forever? There's a, a great kind of inherent synergy to, to packaging materials again,, that are, or products that are meant to only last a few moments in a material that's also designed to decompose into, into natural. Yep.

Cory Connors: 20:00

Absolutely very true and important concept because we spend so much time focusing on barrier properties and things like that, that we forget about end of life sometimes for this packaging materials. Mm-hmm., we, we need it to be recyclable or compostable or reusable or something like that. But,

Julia Marsh: 20:19

Well, you just touched on something that we're excited about, which is within this new wave, and I'm curious if you've encountered this in some of your, your conversations. Within this wave of new materials, there's end of life. There's also afterlife and some packaging substrates, like the Eco Mycelium Styrofoam actually offer nutrients to soil as it decomposes or decomposes within compost, and that the same is true of our seaweed based substrates. So we've actually tested the N P K value. Our films to see what are we giving back to a compost and is there any incentive for your composter to adopt our material? And we found there is. So I hope that this next wave of materials considers not just being neutral, but actually being a positive and giving back in kind of an afterlife. That's how you truly complete the loop that of the, of the circular economy and, and regenerate nature.

Cory Connors: 21:15

Agreed. And it's something that's often forgotten. I. There must be a value to the material at the end of the life and whether that material I is valuable because it can be recycled. Mm-hmm. or cuz it, it, it can add new nutrients to the soil or those things are absolutely, in my opinion, the future of sustainable packaging. Well done.

Julia Marsh: 21:37

Oh, thank you. We're on the same page.. Yeah.

Cory Connors: 21:40

It's an, it's an important concept. Composting hasn't really taken off in a way that, that we thought it would. Mm-hmm., but I think it, I think it still could. But it has to have materials like this that that makes sense. To, to, to, that make it worth the effort to collect them. Mm-hmm. and make the municipalities encourage them to use this material And same for backyard

Julia Marsh: 22:03

composting. That's the quote right there. I I love that. Yeah. What, what do we do to make it worth folks time? I think composting is an inevitability, but we do have to design for that inevitability.

Cory Connors: 22:14

I just posted my podcast with Gary from Pila, which owns the Lomi brand. Mm-hmm. Which that that machine is incredible. I don't know if you've seen that. I Are Your materials Lomi, certified. Julia Marsh: They're not ge definitely will be. Yes. Good. Good. That's something you can, you can do. You can get certified by them to be used in their machines, which is really cool. And we've been a big fans of their machines. You know, that the average American produces one pound of food waste every day.

Julia Marsh: 22:46

It's horrible. Wow. If we weren't in the packaging space, we would be focused on food waste. It's like 40% of all food ever produced just goes to landfill. It's insane. Yeah. I wanna see the big Loamies in front of a target or something like I want Yeah. Giant Loamies everywhere. Processing all this stuff. Capturing all of it., Cory Connors: I agree. Well, and they have a new model that will be used in restaurants. Okay. Awesome. This is exciting and it runs in perpetuity, so you just plug it in and you turn it on and you just add food scraps to it and it shoots. Pellets that are, are soil additives, and they're just wonderful. So you're, it's coming. I think it's coming. I think you're gonna see brands like TerraCycle having you know, recycling at grocery stores and, and big box stores and things like that. But alongside of that, I think you're right. I think there'll be compostable bins. When we're painting our vision of the future, this is a big part of it. Definitely.

Cory Connors: 23:45

Unfortunately, not everybody has a backyard and not every, or a garden as, as they say in Europe. Mm-hmm. It's you know, so we need to provide a spot for them to, to bring , their stuff so it gets back into the soil rather than into the landfill. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's do it. Let's make it happen.. Julia Marsh: All right. Virtual handshake.. Cory Connors: All right. Anything I didn't ask you that you wish I would've?

Julia Marsh: 24:12

I think, you know, the, the, the main points we've covered, it's a lot about sea. It's a lot about making material that genuinely decomposes and creates healthy soil. And then the third piece is really about engaging folks so that they're excited. Materials and don't see them as a burden, but rather as an opportunity. And so I just emphasize and kind of ask to leave on that note of new materials. Do a wonderful job of telling stories about a brand's commitment to making the planet healthier and looking out into the future and accounting for the long-term implications of their packaging usage and mm-hmm with materials like Sway and a lot of our peers. You're embedding e s g value into the material itself. So it's not just packaging, it's contributing to healthy oceans, it's contributing to healthy soil, and it's enabling a restorative supply chain. And there's so much power in that. So, wow. I appreciate the opportunity to, to talk about it on this podcast, and I hope that inspires others to, to seek out these types of materials because they are every.

Cory Connors: 25:22

Excellent. Thank you so much, Julia. I really appreciate your time and your wisdom.

Julia Marsh: 25:26

Ah, thanks Corey., Cory Connors: thank you sponsoring this podcast. If you're listening, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the next episode, and stay tuned for more. Thank you.