Agar agar plastics

Everywhere you look in the supermarket, you will find plastic packaging. Even in places where you would think it would not need a plastic wrapping... Then why is it still happening and why aren't we making any changes to our plastic consumption?

For my graduation project as a packaging designer i chose to be very critical towards the packaging material industry and it's designers. The goal of this project was to make consumers aware of their plastic consumption and the growing plastic pollution. Because of this growing problem I brought forward a possible material that could be used for future packaging material.

KLEAN became a project in which I wrote a research paper on our current problem and how this may affect our future. This project became a forecasting on our current trends and possible materials that are already being researched to replace plastic one day. The material I chose to work with was agar agar.

Agar agar is a plant-based gelatin derived from seaweed. The white and semi-translucent vegetable gelatin is sold in flake, powder, bar, and strand form, and can be used in recipes as a stabilising and thickening agent.

I concluded that if i were to brew up a new packaging material in my very own kitchen, then why was the industry being so stubborn and not investing and researching these new materials? Why stick to plastic packaging materials while we already know it's not healthy for us or the earth.

From my own kitchen, I was able to create different agar-agar plastic materials. Based on these results,

I created a forecasting on how this new material could slowly be implemented and replace plastic packaging materials in our supermarkets. With the agar-agar plastic having different purposes, thickness and texture.

- 2017