Mushrooms and urine – the strange solutions to our plastic problem

As the planet drowns in plastic waste, companies are devising bizarre alternatives, including stretchy seaweed, reverse vending machines and bamboo utensils, to save us all.

Plastic waste often does not decompose and it can last in landfill for many years but the "cure" for "disposable plastic crap" has arrived, said Wired, and it's becoming ever more imaginative.

What is the problem?

Plastic pollution is a growing issue that's impacting ecosystems globally. Over 30% of plastics are single-use and although this is convenient it means they are discarded after just one use, a problem that "haunts the public imagination like a spectral wolf", said Wired.

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So is recycling the answer? Well, "shockingly", said the BBC, recycling "merely slows down the journey of plastics to landfills or oceans, where the material simply fragments into smaller and smaller bits that never completely biodegrade". So while it is a "step in the right direction", we "need to look toward plastic alternatives".

What are the plastic alternatives?

"Fortunately", said the broadcaster, various experts are now "shifting their focus" to ecologically friendly alternatives that create "circular, low-waste ecosystems" – for instance liquid wood, algae insulation, and polymer substitutes made from fermented plant starch such as corn or potatoes.

The maths show the benefit of these innovations: while single-use straws made of traditional plastics can take up to 200 years to degrade, single-use straws made of bioplastic PHA will degrade in just 90 days when buried in soil and 180 days in the ocean.

There's an irony in the fact that while the oceans pay the prices of dumped plastic, they might also offer part of the solution. Seaweed is "kind of hot", said Wired, and a company in California is using it to make cellophane-like bags.

Composed of the plant’s long chains of carbohydrate molecules, you can "throw it on a regular home composting heap" and "in a few weeks you'll find only scraps of it" and "in six months, it'll be an organic part of the soil".

What other alternatives are there?

Mushrooms "aren't just a flavour-packed addition to ravioli or ragu" or a "sparkplug to the occasional psychedelic adventure", said the BBC, they may replace materials like polystyrene, protective packaging, insulation, acoustic insulation, furniture, aquatic materials and "even leather goods".

Urine has proven to be a useful ingredient in bricks, and "stone wool" from natural igneous rock can produce a fibreglass-like plastic and can be engineered to boast unique properties including fire resistance and water repellency. Or you can go even more natural than that. Rather than using plastic cocktail stirrer you could "try a stick of celery, carrot or cucumber", said WWF Australia, or "why not go herbal and try a stick of rosemary"?

Then there is the option of simply increasing recycling rates. A Norwegian company "recycles nearly every damn bottle" using "reverse" vending machines. Customers "shove used bottles in and earn a few coins back" and the companies that made the bottles pay less tax.

So is the problem solved?

Although "theoretically" these alternatives could "seamlessly slot into existing supply chains" there are some doubts about them, said Time, because "production is limited in scale" and more expensive, and it's not been proven that the alternatives are "actually better for human and planetary health".

Also, most plant-based plastics are, "on a molecular level", the same as their "fossil-fuel-sourced siblings" and "last just as long in the environment".

So-called 'greenwashing' has become a" troubling issue", said Forbes, because corn-based materials that are marketed as "compostable" do not "degrade as promised if they end up in forests or oceans".

The alternative plastic world is a "minefield", said Time, and "cloaked" in sustainability marketing that "at best is aspirational", and "at worst causes as many problems as the products it is trying to replace".

The search for a solution to the planet's plastic problem continues.