The Innovative Future of Plastic-Alternative Materials

Is a plastic-free world possible? Maybe sooner than we think.

There’s a lot of grim news out there. Even while working on this Substack, I cam across a UN report from May talking about the health effects of plastic. It wasn’t great and it’s mostly unavoidable: our food, our things, our water, our air all contains plastic.

I wanted to give a bit more of a positive spin on this week’s Substack. I wanted to talk about all the amazing innovative materials that are either just starting to be developed and put on the market or are undergoing R&D right now. It’s a bit of a dark time but there are exciting things just around the corner. I think this is important for us sustainably-minded designers to keep tabs on because we’re functionally quite close to the problem of plastics use in packaging: we recommend packaging and paper options to our clients in our work and act as experts for them. Why not tease some of the cool things coming down the pipeline in the next few years and encourage them to be early-adopters when they happen!

So this is my little round-up of some of the cool innovative, future-forward materials that are being developed right now!

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The Future of Leather

The leather industry currently relies heavily on the byproducts of the meat industry. If we’re going to transition away from massive industrial animal agriculture, we’ll have to explore leather alternatives. And no, pleather isn’t the right alternative: it’s just plastic made with PVC or polyetheurene and falls apart after an aggregiously short amount of time. Please avoid buying pleather, it’s extremely bad for the environment.

Desserto’s Cactus-Based Leather

This vegan leather is made from the leaves from the nopal cactus plant. The leaves of the plant are harvested twice a year and the plant remains growing past-harvest.

This leather is highly durable, water resistant. This leather is being incorporated into bags, shoes, and other fashion applications. This cactus leather features one of the closest textural replica to traditional leather.

Mycowork’s and Mylo’s Mycellium-Based Leather

There are several companies making leather from mycellium. Mushrooms are extremely easy to grow in vertical farms and can have large production cycles, making a great feed source replacement for leather.

Mycellium is harvested and then processed into a material resembling leather. The leather is then processed by an actual tannery to give it the look and feel of traditional leather.

Pinatex’s Pineapple-Based Leather

Similar to the others, this leather alternative is made from pineapple leaves! The leaves are usually a waste product associated with pineapple farming. Pinatex has found a way to transform this waste product into leather. The fibre is extracted from the leaves of the pineapple and left to dry in the sun. Then this fibre is combined with PLA (sad) to become the leather. Some of their leathers also have polyurethane resins added to make them more water-resistant so unfortunately this one isn’t quite as rad as the ones above but still worth mentioning as it’s quite interesting.

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The Future of Foam

Syrofoam is one of those materials that’s fundamental in our current supply chains to protect fragile items like glass and technology. But it’s also one of the most harmful materials: it too is made from fossil fuels and cannot be recycled. Finding a replacement for styrofoam is one of the current challenges for sustainable packaging today.

Ecovative’s Mycellium Foam / Packaging Material

“Mushroom styrofoam is really cool!!!!!” is maybe not the best party conversation but is really is cool, okay!!! Ecovative has figured out a way of growing the mycellium into custom-moulded trays in order to have the same functional use as custom moulded styrofoam insert trays! It’s entirely home compostable too. The mycellium is supported into its structural shape by hemp hurd, a byproduct of the hemp industry and a natural, plant product.

These mushroom packaging trays are shelf-stable inside indefinitely but will fully compost in 45 days outside.

Bloom’s Algae Foam

Bloom focuses on removing harmful algae blooms from waterways. These algae blooms have become more common due to excess nitrogen and fertilizer runoff, rising temperatures and other human activities. These algae blooms can pollute and choke waterways.

Bloom has been focused on creating foam and rubber replacements for shoes like sneakers.

Cruz Foam’s Crustacean Foam

One of the more unique options is Cruz Foam’s foam made from the chitin that is found in crustacean shells. These shells are a byproduct of the seafood industry and amount to huge amounts of toxic waste that is difficult to dispose of. Chitin is a biopolymer that is found in the exoskeleton of shrimp, lobsters, etc.

These foams are compostable and breaks down in soil within weeks. Foam Cruz also makes foam and paper wrap, foam-padded mailers, and foam coolers that can keep food frozen in addition to their sustainable “styrofoam” alternative.

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The Future of Sequins

Wood-Based Sequins that Draw Inspiration from Beetle Wings

Sequins are beautiful and sparkly and made of plastic. It’s maybe not something we immediately think about when considering sparkly clothes. In older times, sequins were indeed made of metal and reserved for the wealthy, but now are plentiful to all thanks to petroleum.

This plant-based sequin (which looks absolutely stunning?) is made of cellulose from plants. This bio-iridescent sequin is made from extracting the christalline form of cellulose and is entirely natural, nothing shown above is synthetic. The designer, Elissa Brunato, was inspired by the iridescence found abundantly in nature, especially on beetle wings. The sequins are extremely durable, but will compost naturally over time in soil if desired.

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The Future of Plastics

And now the truly hard-to-tackle stuff: true plastics.

Sway’s Seaweed Packaging Film

One of our favourites! Sway! They’re working on a plastic alternative film from seaweed. Their films are compostable (4-6 weeks at home) and can come in a variety of colours and textures depending on the type of seaweed used. Sway’s “plastic” can fundtion as a high-performance replacement for LDPE plastics. It’s entirely transparent and is composed of 75% seaweed and 25% plants. These films are heat-sealable and have a 12 month shelf life.

Sway’s seaweed also supports farming communities along coasts that are particularly vulnerable to climate change. The seaweed grown is harvested sustainably, contributes to carbon sequestration and the re-kelp-foresting of important kelp ocean ecosystems along the coast. All wins. We can’t wait for Sway to hit the market.

Shellwork’s Chiton-Based Films (Lobsters!)

Shellworks is another chiton-based material but instead of shrimps and foams this time it’s lobsters and plastics! Once again these plastic-alternatives are free from petroleum and microplastics, and are home compostable. They’re working on films but also “plastic” jars, caps, and more.

Kombucha and Food-Waste Based Films

The MakeGrowLab has created a form of alternative “plastic” made out of kombucha and other food waste. This plastic material can be formed into films that can be sealed or used to wrap fruits and vegetables. When finished with its use, the film actually can be used as a high-quality fertilizer. The material has an excellent oxygen and water barrier and can be used an alternative to plastic-coatings that are often used in packaging that comes into contact with food. These plastic coatings often contain PFAS and other toxic compounds, so a sustainable and non-toxic solution to this is awesome to see.

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Which alternative material is your favourite? I know I can’t wait to recommend Sway to my clients when it becomes commercially viable at large scale and easy accessibility!

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Reading: Just finished “The Seed Keeper” and it was an excellent read. I highly recommend it.

Watching: Recently re watched the animated film “Isle of Dogs” by Wes Anderson. Always good.

Some Bonus Things You May or May Not Want to Check Out

The Strandline: My personal Substack where I post about my art, naturalist things like birding, marine biology, and plant-based ink experiments.

Our YouTube Channel: For free webinar replays discussing green graphic design, studio politics, sustainable packaging and more.

The Green Graphic Design Course: For further education on Green Graphic Design, our complete educational offer (use code: SUBSTACK for 10% off).

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Thank you for reading!