With Indonesia being declared the second largest pollutant of plastic materials in water, and
losing their beaches, well-known for their beauty, to pollution, one Indonesian startup has found
a material to combat the use of plastic, seaweed.

Evoware, co-founded by David Christian, uses chemical-free seaweed to make hand-made
containers that would normally be made of plastic, as reported by Business Insider. The
company is hoping the products will help the environment by reducing the amount of plastic
used and then discarded.

"I saw how much plastic waste is produced here, which takes hundreds or thousands of years to
degrade and contaminates everything," Christian said.
Christian said Indonesia produces 10 million tonnes of seaweed each year with plans to
produce 19 million tonnes a year by 2020.

The first product made by the company was a cup which tastes like jelly, despite being made of
seaweed, which is wrapped to preserve texture. The cups are used by Ong Tek Tjan, a food
and beverage retailer in Jakarta, who sells ice-cream in the cups.
Vender Tjan said he supports the seaweed cups but said it’s up to five times more expensive
than using regular cups, which might make it a longer climb for success for the company’s
product. “I hope in future the packaging could be better and not use plastic,” customer Vince Lantang
Helda said. Indonesia has also joined a cleanup drive led by The United Nations since its plastic pollution problem came to light.