Tampons made from algae

Tampons are important hygiene products, with millions being used every day. However, they also contribute to a major environmental problem: the pollution of the sea with plastic waste. A more environmentally friendly alternative has therefore been developed, which uses seaweed to produce biodegradable tampons. We are partnering with a Berlin-based startup and working to develop a more sustainable way to source the raw materials required for these products.

The figures speak for themselves: in German-speaking countries alone, around 17 million hygiene products are used every day, which are often largely made from plastic. Many of these are flushed away and therefore ultimately end up in the sea. According to the European Commission, tampons and similar products are the fifth most common item found washed up on European beaches. Consequently, there is a demand for biodegradable or reusable alternatives.

Our project partners at Vyld have already developed such a product: the “Kelpon” is the world’s first tampon made from algae. It is made from a special biopolymer that can be extracted from seaweed and then processed into fibres. Until now, Vyld has used wild seaweed from the sea. In future, however, they will use algae gathered from sea farms in order to allow the natural supply to continue to grow. 

And there is still room for improvement when it comes to the manufacturing process itself. This is precisely what we aim to achieve in our work with the company on the “Green Hygiene” project. We have developed a method that not only allows the polymer to be extracted from the algae more quickly – we are also able to save more water and require significantly fewer organic solvents and other chemicals, compared to established industry practices. We are currently testing whether this method can also be used on a large scale. On top of that, we would like to know, for example, how the harvest time or cultivation conditions of the algae affect the stability of the polymer. 

If we can improve the sourcing of raw materials in this way, it would not only be of interest for producing environmentally friendly tampons – for example, Vyld is already working on nappies made from seaweed. And algae have a range of other applications, finding use in everything from cosmetics, to food and on to pharmaceutical products. We can also harness our method to provide versatile raw materials for application scenarios such as these. This is because the quality and the properties of the polymer we obtain can be controlled in such a way that it will satisfy a range of different requirements – meaning that we are far from exhausting all possible uses for this raw material from the sea.