AGAR PLASTICITY — A POTENTIAL USEFULNESS OF AGAR FOR PACKAGING AND MORE by swissjapanese7 from japan

Agar, which is derived from a type of seaweed, is traditionally consumed as food in Japan, and used in scientific and medical fields worldwide. Sold in a dry state, agar shows porous, feathery structure and is very light despite its volume. We have taken notice of these features and have been exploring its possibility for packaging.

When shipping goods, they are wrapped in cushioning materials often made of plastics. Once unwrapped, they soon become waste or are collected to be recycled. Considering the raw materials and energy for processing, this situation is undesirable. Anticipating effective and sustainable utilisation of natural resources has become more and more indispensable. Believing biodegradable substitutes to plastics are needed, we take this occasion, Lexus Design Award 2016, to tackle this seemingly ignored problem.

Agar can be extracted by boiling specific kinds of red algae and then dehydrating the soup. Its resultant state depends on ways of dehydration, which are chosen based on the kinds of red algae - freezing for a soft cushioning structure, or compressing for stiff film-like state. Besides that, as agar is mouldable, not only as a cushioning material, but we would like to also propose packages, which would require no extra cushioning; moreover, we are expecting with a possible agar-derived plastic material through further development.

After use, agar products can be disposed of in an environmentally-friendly way. Thanks to its nature, agar can serve as a material to improve the water-retention property of soil, or should it drift in the sea, it would not harm marine lives.