Algae-based material creates biodegradable flip flops
Siobhan Treacy | August 07, 2020Researchers from the University of California San Diego teamed up with a materials science and technology company, Algenesis Materials, to create an algae-based biodegradable material for flip flops.
Commerical-quality biodegradable flip-flops. Source: Stephen Mayfield, UC San Diego
Because flip flops are a huge source of waste in landfills, leeching harmful chemicals into groundwater, researchers approached the manufacture of environmentally friendly flip flops with one mission in mind: the life of the material should be in proportion to the life of the product. As such, the team developed a polyurethane foam made of algae oil that can be used to create midsole shoes and the footbed of flip flops. The polyurethane has biobased monomers that meet high materials specifications for footwear while also being biodegradable.
To test the foam’s biodegradability, the team immersed samples of the foam in traditional compost and soil where it degraded after 16 weeks. The team also tested the foam’s toxicity by measuring every molecule shed from the material as it decomposed and identified the organisms that degraded the foams.
Researchers tested enzymes from the organisms and found that they could be used to depolymerize polyurethane products. They proved that they could isolate depolymerized products and use them to synthesize polyurethane monomers. This entire process completes a bioloop.
The full recyclability and biodegradability of commercial products, like shoes, is one way to address waste management and plastic pollution.
The team is working with manufacturing partners to economically produce the new material.
A paper on this new material was published in Bioresource Technology Reports.
"Flip-flops are a huge source of waste at landfills." Really?
If you purchase good ones, they can last a long time and not end up in landfills. The pair I have (used every day as slippers and at the beach and camping) are over twenty years old. The straps are a heavy braided nylon strap covered with strips of leather suede for 'traction' on the foot so they stay put.
I have a trash waste trash can, a green waste trash can, a recyclable waste trash can and will soon be getting a flip flop trash can.
I don't know, but it seems counterproductive to create a whole new bureaucracy to recycle old flip flops rather than stopping the production of flip flops in the first place.