Seaweed could soon replace cling film

Urban hippies and sustainability crusaders will soon have an earth-friendly alternative to plastic cling film for wrapping up their leftovers, thanks to group Japanese designers who've unveiled a prototype design for a biodegradable substitute for conventional plastic packaging.

Design group AMAM has been announced as the winner of the Lexus Design Award 2016, positioning them as the designers to watch for their project Agar Plasticity, which explores the use of environmentally-friendly seaweed-derived agar as a packaging alternative. 

By boiling certain types of algae and dehydrating the liquid, the group found it can be stretched into a variety of shapes so that when it's frozen the solution becomes a soft, foam packaging solution, and when compressed becomes a plastic-like biodegradable film. 

AMAM were chosen as the winners out of four other prototype finalists across multiple categories. The award garnered 1232 submissions from 73 countries. Eleven finalists are currently being exhibited at the ‘Anticipation’ themed Lexus installation at Milan Design Week.