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By John Soukas
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Humanity has a remarkable ability to innovate, adapt, and evolve. But often, there are unintended consequences. Oil, a resource powering industries and economies, is routinely converted into plastic cups, packaging, textiles, and disposable utensils that are used for minutes but persist in the environment for centuries. We’ve turned one of the planet’s most valuable finite resources into waste, without even fully knowing the potential impact on human health.
Now, fragments of that waste are showing up in our food, water, and bodies. We have to ask ourselves whether this still makes sense.
Researchers have detected microplastics in human blood, lungs, placentas, and even brain tissue. A systematic review published in Environmental Health found evidence of microplastic accumulation across multiple organ systems, alongside concerning associations with inflammation and other biological changes. We are conducting a global experiment with materials whose long-term effects we do not fully understand.
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Consider the scale of our dependence. The world was expected to consume approximately 516 million tons of plastic in 2025 alone, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. Around nine percent of all plastic produced globally is recycled. We have built an industrial system around products designed for minutes of convenience, leaving communities and ecosystems to manage the consequences for generations.
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As a result, the current climate challenges are ultimately a crisis of everyday survival. It is felt not just in abstract temperature spikes, but in the straining of the systems that feed us and the drying of the taps that sustain us. We are pushing our fields, freshwater, and coasts to their absolute limits.
The Food and Agriculture Organization reported that renewable freshwater availability per person had declined by seven percent over the previous decade. As the population grows and the planet dries, the luxury of thoughtless production has run its course. Every material we choose to manufacture, every supply chain we build, is now a high-stakes calculation in resource survival.
Seaweed Is Nature's Unicorn
This is where seaweed, nature’s unicorn, deserves considerably more attention. It is an extraordinary industrial resource with the potential to address several challenges simultaneously.
Seaweed can grow in marine environments without competing for agricultural land or relying on freshwater irrigation. Its natural compounds can be processed into materials with applications across packaging, textiles, inks, building materials, and agricultural biostimulants. It can also absorb excess nutrients from coastal waters and contribute to carbon sequestration, depending on how it is cultivated and managed.
Companies are already exploring these possibilities in practice. Living Ink is developing algae-based inks as an alternative to conventional petrochemical pigments, while other researchers and manufacturers are experimenting with seaweed-based packaging, textiles and other materials. Some of these applications also have functional properties beyond sustainability, including biodegradability and, in certain material formulations, natural resistance to flame.
The economic proposition deserves equal attention. Seaweed could help establish new manufacturing industries, create jobs, and diversify supply chains that remain heavily dependent on petroleum-derived inputs.
The opportunity is particularly interesting because its benefits can appeal across political and economic divides. An environmental initiative that creates domestic jobs and develops commercially competitive products should be an attractive proposition to anyone concerned with economic prosperity.
Rethinking the Materials Economy
There is a bigger question here about how we value the things we consume. Economists call it an externality. A product’s retail price often excludes the costs associated with pollution, ecosystem damage, disposal, and the associated burden placed on public finance. A ten-cent plastic bottle may appear inexpensive at the checkout, yet society ultimately absorbs costs that never appear on its price tag.
Imagine if Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’ rewarded manufacturers for creating materials with positive environmental value, incentivizing investors to build businesses around recovering resources that would otherwise become waste. We could help create entirely new industries, strengthen local economies, and give consumers access to better products.
The alternative is an expensive cycle of environmental damage, resource scarcity, and public health uncertainty.
This is a global problem with consequences that reach every household. The water we drink, the food we eat, and the products we wear are connected through international supply chains and shared ecosystems. Pollution travels across borders, and environmental disruption in one region can affect livelihoods thousands of miles away. We cannot insulate ourselves from these consequences through geography or political affiliation.
Consumers also hold considerable influence over how quickly this transformation happens. We have seen changing preferences reshape entire industries, from the expansion of plant-based milk to the growing market for alternative materials in fashion. Every purchasing decision sends a signal about what people value and what businesses should produce. I want consumers to look at a product and ask: What is it made of, where does it go after use, and how does it affect our bodies?
I believe seaweed represents an extraordinary and commercially transformative opportunity. The next step requires conviction from the people with the power to move markets. Corporate boards and policymakers should put alternative materials on their strategic agendas and expand their opportunity set, which should improve resilience by reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
I’ve walked into many presentation rooms where their first response is ‘this is weird or crazy.’ But as the story and facts sink in, it becomes clear that seaweed has the potential to be the most transformable crop of our lifetime.
We have the scientific capability, entrepreneurial talent, and natural resources to begin this transition. What remains is the willingness to take the first step and go beyond the initial skepticism. The materials we choose to build our future with will eventually help determine the health of our communities and the resilience of the economy we leave behind.
John Soukas is the CEO and Co-Founder of Norfolk Green Ventures, a private investment firm focused on ocean technology, seaweed innovations, and sustainable climate solutions. All views are the author's own.
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