The circle of it: This company creates plastic alternative materials that are home-compostable from seaweed.
zerocircle
Summary
ZeroCircle has created a number of bio-soluble packaging and other plastic alternative solutions from seaweed. The company sources local seaweed along India’s coast and creates this seaweed plastic-alternative that should be able to replace LDPE (low-density polyethylene) and PP (Polypropylene). The Mumbai-based startup has signed up with large CPG companies in India, and sources seaweed from coastal cities close to the client companies. Currently, the seaweed is sourced from farming communities in the Indian coastal states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. Currently, the company works with several B2B consumer brands (e.g., processed foods, personal care, etc.) to provide packaging solutions. As of now, the company provides solutions that replace LDPE and PP, which are widely used for packaging solutions. The solutions work best for food products that are dry. (Source)
Story
Founder Neha Jain has a background in IT and had worked with several tech companies before embarking on a journey to finding sustainable alternative materials. Jain did research on various materials for almost 2 years and realized the need for materials that are not only sustainable but also regenerative. Her extensive research led her to seaweed and the unique properties of algae. Jain founded the company in 2020. (Source)
Pic Credit: Inhabitat (right) and Packaging360 (top)
“When I discovered seaweed, I realized that it is one of the ancient organisms that lived on this planet. In fact, the microalgae and macroalgae found in the oceans are the grandfathers of the trees we have on the land. The survival of the oceans is so critical for our life. It is important for us to understand that it is the ocean that we need to harvest sustainably. What can you take from the oceans that can be built into a material, used sustainably, and discarded sustainably? There is a lot of research happening in this space. I wanted to leverage the research that is being done and already done and create a solution around it.”
Neha Jain in an interview
Founder(s)
Neha Jain
Headquarters
Mumbai, India
In business since
2020
Business type
for profit
Impact
Technology
creating plastic alternatives from seaweed
Material
seaweed
Website
The Circular People 
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