It’s tricky trying to pigeonhole Western Australian company Uluu. Equal parts scientific endeavour, manufacturing business, environmental force for good and game changer all rolled into one, Uluu is perhaps best described as modern day alchemy. But rather than trying to turn base materials into precious metals, Uluu is turning humble seaweed into a product closely resembling plastic, but without the downsides, and in doing so, is offering up a solution to one of the gravest environmental threats to the world’s oceans – and by extension – us.

The brainchild of Dr Julia Reisser and Michael Kingsbury, Uluu is taking farmed seaweed, and  using a carbon-neutral process that is effectively a type of fermentation, to produce a product that is a viable alternative to modern, hydrocarbon-based plastics, that is also reusable, recyclable, compostable, and biodegradable.

The idea was born out of a desire to help stop the tremendous environmental damage of not only producing ‘traditional’ plastics but also the catastrophic damage those discarded plastics do to the world’s oceans and everything that lives in them.

Oceanographer Dr Reisser pursued a PhD in ocean plastics after discovering that the green sea turtles she was studying in her native Brazil were consuming large quantities of discarded ocean plastics. 

This set her on what has become something of a mission, first joining Dutch non-profit organisation, The Ocean Cleanup, to further pursue the idea of ridding the oceans of the choking plastics. 

While cleaning up the exisiting problem is obviously essential, it was the fact that there is no viable alternative to fossil fuel-based plastics that led Reisser to look at addressing the root of the problem and finding ways to replace plastic altogether.

In 2020, she teamed up with co-founder and co-CEO Michael Kingsbury, a former business executive and M&A lawyer, and Uluu was born.

“Julia had the idea, and since then, we’ve worked hard together to build this business,” says Kingsbury of the company that is now attracting attention from all quarters with its unique approach and tangible results.

“We’ve proven the technology in the lab, set up a test plant and are now collaborating with customers to bring our materials to market, replacing plastics in areas like packaging and fashion textiles.”

Other alternatives to petrochemical plastic do exist, using land-based plant matter as the base material from which to produce polymers, but the Uluu team settled on seaweed for its combination of attractive properties. 

Not only is it a sustainable product that doesn’t require land, fresh water or fertilisers to grow it, it also captures significant amounts of carbon and pollutants from the sea. Realistically any type of seaweed can be used for the process, but analysing more that 40 different seaweed varieties from farms in Indonesia, the Philippines, China, South Africa, and Australia, the Uluu team settled on a red seaweed variety called Gracilaria. This species is extensively farmed in Indonesia, the world’s second-largest seaweed producer after China, and is relatively affordable and easy to cultivate, costing around $200 per ton to farm, supporting a $7 billion industry which is growing at 9 percent annually.

Then there’s the fact that seaweed requires no farm land for cultivation, indeed farming only 0.1 percent of the ocean’s surface could be enough to meet global plastic demand and Indonesia alone could meet half of this area requirement. Uluu’s Indonesian business, SeaSae, is already working with WWF and local co-operatives to scale traceable, certified seaweed production for Uluu and other industries.

Seaweed has the additional advantage of sequestering atmospheric carbon as well as absorbing marine pollutants, such as excess nitrogen, which enter the ocean through sewage and industrial runoff.

The harvested seaweed is effectively ‘cooked’ to break it down into its simple sugars, turning it into a liquid or ‘media’ to use the technical term. This in turn is used to grow bacteria to produce the PHAs – Polyhydroxyalkanoates – which is the biodegradable plastic substitute. This is then extruded and moulded into pellets which are the product that Uluu sells to brands and manufacturers to replace petrochemical plastic pellets.

The whole production process takes just a few days to complete and the unique fermentation process has the potential to offset 5kg of CO₂ equivalent per kg of Uluu produced. The process also produces a protein-rich seaweed by-product which can be used as an animal protein alternative. After extracting carbohydrates for PHA, Uluu is left with processed seaweed biomass that offers increased protein and digestibility, making it a valuable vegan protein source which will initially be used to replace fishmeal in aquafeed.

The process itself is also low impact, with Western Australia’s current energy mix meaning that Uluu's commercial-scale plant is expected to produce roughly 2kg CO₂ equivalent per kilogram of Uluu. However, the process can be fully electric, which means nearly zero emissions with renewable energy investment.

“By balancing emissions with the carbon we sequester or avoid,” says Dr Reisser, “Uluu can potentially offset more carbon than it produces, unlocking materials that are functional and planet-positive.”

Not surprisingly, interest in Uluu has been growing significantly as word spreads and with two successful capital raises under their belt, including investment from CSIRO’s venture capital arm, Main Sequence and even celebrity endorsements from the likes of Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker, the name and the product are attracting attention from all over the globe. Awards like the KPMG Nature Positive Challenge and most recently, the Emerging Innovator category at the WA Innovators of the Year awards, also serve to raise the company’s profile and generate interest as it enters its next phase.

“We’re currently preparing to build a demonstration plant to scale Uluu’s production, positioning us to begin initial sales to customers ahead of full commercial-scale production in the coming years,” says Michael Kingsbury.

“Our first product – injection molding-grade pellets – is launch-ready, with plans to scale for applications like cosmetics packaging and fashion accessories.”

“We’re also excited to continue advancing the development of our second product – melt-spinning-grade pellets for textiles that perform like traditional plastics (polyester for example) without releasing persistent microplastics. While there’s still work ahead, we’re making significant strides and collaborating with brands like Quiksilver.”

The future of the Uluu product and its scope for replacing conventional plastics is tremendous.

“Just as there are many types of plastics, there are many types of PHAs. These biopolymers can potentially replace most—if not all—conventional plastics,” says Dr Reisser.

The potential applications for the automotive world too are of great interest to Audi as part of the brand’s ongoing efforts to reduce environmental impacts right across the manufacturing process. 

“As we scale and reduce production costs, our goal is to replace plastics across various markets, including automotive parts,” says Reisser.

“We’re excited to stay connected with Audi as we work toward this vision.”

The technology is proven and the results are exciting right across the process. Now it’s a matter of producing the product at scale to start to stem the tide – no pun intended – of conventional plastics. Certainly it is a modern day alchemy story with a refreshing twist, and one that attacks a major issue head on with ingenuity and positive results from start to finish.