Our famous seaweed, which often accompanies us on our beach trips, is an alternative and nutritious protein solution for those who are health conscious and do not accept anything of animal origin. In addition, they can fuel a new generation of sustainable fashion startups to create unusual and sustainable clothing. The fashion industry produces more than 100 billion pieces of clothing a year, about 14 pieces for every inhabitant of the Earth.

Most of it ends up in landfills or floods rivers and beaches in developing countries. Only some of them are recycled. In addition, according to Bloomberg, fashion is responsible for up to 10% of global warming carbon emissions, more than international air travel and ocean shipping combined. For Charlotte McCarthy, a researcher, designer and assistant professor at Arizona State University, solving this problem means thinking not only about where our clothes end up, but how they are made. Synthetic fabrics like polyester, the cheapest and most consumed of all, are made from fossil fuels. The dyes used to impregnate fabrics with black ink are obtained from argon.

So in 2018, Macardi began designing a raincoat made from pollution-absorbing seaweed, and this translucent garment was on display at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York in 2019. Macardi also collaborated with fashion designer Philip Lim to create a dress covered in green. sequins from the same material.

“I’m trying to emphasize that it’s not just about where our clothes go, but where they come from – 60% of clothes are fossil fuels,” says the designer. “So I did a lot of experiments and collected an endless amount of technologies, failed hundreds of times before I was able to create this transparent, very stable plastic that is completely free of synthetics and chemicals and is made only from algae.” From hemp to mushrooms, from eucalyptus to bamboo, more and more startups are looking to nature for just such solutions.

And they’re being noticed by retail giants like Swedish group H&M, which aims to make all of its products from recycled or sustainable materials by 2030. In particular, algae, which are already used in biofuels and bioplastics, are of interest because they grow quickly and cheaply, do not require much water, and absorb carbon dioxide from the air. Photosynthesising aquatic organisms produce about 70% of the oxygen in our atmosphere, more than all forests combined.

Fashion accounts for 10% of carbon dioxide emissions, more than aviation and shipping combined.

For example, Renana Krebs founded the Israeli company Algaeing in 2016, two years after she gave up her career in fashion. Working with her father, a biofuel engineer, Krebs developed an algae-based alternative to the chemical dyes that have flooded the clothing industry. After a slow start, interest in Algaeing dyes and inks has skyrocketed in the past year.

Now the start-up division is working around the clock to fulfill the first commercial orders from manufacturers of sun loungers, sportswear and home textiles. The company is also developing algae-based yarn, which is expected to begin commercialization next year.