Sea grown plastic replacers
Our biobased and restorative products
Weedware offers a variety of algae based biopolymers for the industry. Weedware works B2B (Business2Business) only and helps companies in their transition from fossil to renewable and ecological polymers.
Our portfolio consists of following products, which we can (grow and) prepare on demand:
Wierwaar's Masterbatch
Our current top biopolymer, supplied as granulate is renewable, soil and marine compostable. Contains primarily algae and seaweed based ingredients (>80-90%). The remaining ingredients are plant based.
Wierwaar's Interior & Crafts
These granulates are suitable for manual production lines, such as pressed forms or (interior) panels. It's thermoplastic properties will make it processable when heated above 70 degrees celcius and stabilises on room temperature.
Wierwaar's Injection Molding
The granulates are optimised and combined in a matrix of biopolymers on demand. Companies that are already active in the field of biopolymers, can use our seaweed based polymers with ease in combination with their acquainted biopolymers without interrupting their production lines. Infusing biopolymers with seaweed, optimising its properties, degradability and aesthetics. We don't supply our masterbatch to be used in combination with fossil based plastics
Wierwaar's Robot Printing and large scale applications
Our material is extensively tested and optimised with our dedicated partners for use in Robot and large scale Printers (granulate based). Robotic printing company CEAD, has tested and approved our material for their large scale robot printers they supply to their clients. The material has been successfully tested on a printer with a work area of 4x4x3 meters.
Wierwaar's pigments and polymers, (grown) on demand
Weedware can supply biopolymers, ranging from pigment to 3D printing or injection molding polymers on demand for B2B applications. We don't supply to consumers and single material (sample) requests. We only run full cycle batches, meaning from cultivation (seagriculture) to product (ranging from 3D printing to injection molding). Contact us for a further info.
Examples
Over the years Wierwaar - as a spinoff of Klarenbeek & Dros - have developed many applications and examples.
Klarenbeek & Dros X Iris van Herpen
Wierwaar founders Klarenbeek Dros worked with Iris van Herpen on the execution of an Algae Dress specifically for their 15years Anniversary. Proud and thankful to Iris and team for putting their trust in us.
Klarenbeek & Dros X Iris van Herpen, 2022 - Iris van Herpen Haute Couture show featuring Weedware's Algae Based 3D prints
Seaweed Cycle by Studio Klarenbeek & Dros for The Breakdown Economy, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
In the online exhibition The Breakdown Economy, the Seaweed Cycle presents a world without plastic, placed centrally in the exhibition. Showing our natural soil and marine degradable alternatives to plastic and its degradation.
The Breakdown Economy is an exhibition about making and destroying things. Its not about economic growth and efficient production, but about the limitations of this model. How do we destroy everything that we, as humans, have made? In this discussion you can assume a radical position and lump everything together or adopt a more pragmatic attitude whereby a breakdown economy is in balance with nature. What connects all these ideas is not just that things can be done differently, but that they must be done differently.
The recordings for The Breakdown Economy were made at Foundation AVL Mundo. The concept of the online exhibition was conceived and executed together with Koehorst in t Veld and film-maker Roel van Tour. Exhibitors: Studio Klarenbeek & Dros, Atelier van Lieshout, Koehorst in t Veld.
Thanks to Boijmans van Beuningen, Polyplasticum, Basse Stittgen, NIOZ, WUR. Lennart Engels, Friedrich Gerlach, Klarenbeek & Dros 2020
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Learn about our restorative materials
Wierwaar is the first company in the Netherlands that develops algae based biopolymers since 2015. We have the broadest portfolio of thermoplastic algae and seaweed based biopolymers, which are known all over the planet. Over the years we've built on this new infrastructure for production; A closed cycle carbon production chain, in order to achieve CO2-binding and biocompatible materials that restore ecology, stimulate biodiversity and break the current destructive cycle of production. Algae (or Seaweeds) are very suitable for this: Firstly because of the versatile properties and possible applications, and secondly because they are able to convert CO2 into oxygen and biomass from the beginning of evolution. Ever since they provide the most oxygen production on our planet (>60%), more than all trees.
The Seaweed Circle, is a blueprint for a new production chain, initiated by studio Klarenbeek and Dros, and currently scaled by Weedware, building and strengtening the network of vital partners. This production circle offers a solution for multiple and current problems: It offers a alternative for fossil based plastics, storing CO2 for the middle-ling term (50-100 years) in products for interior and the built environment. Simultaneously tackling current issues such as the Plastic soup as our polymers degrade in the natural environment, avoiding excessive algae growth in open waters, and the use of fertilisers and pesticides becomes unnecessary as we apply the seaweed juice on land as a natural fertiliser
The Process
We work closely together with farmers on both land and sea, boosting circular agriculture on land and seagriculture (seafarming), boosting biodiversity in sea, the new blue farmers. In the sea, excessive nutrients from agriculture, such as nitrogen and CO2 are bound in seaweeds, are mown and harvested. This reduces the chance on excessive algal blooms, that we see occur more and more these days, reinforced by the global rise of temperature. Subsequently, the seaweeds are processed in a refining line, where the cells are separated, resulting in four streams of raw materials. Past year we've sourced over 6000 kilo of cultivated seaweed, storing over 10.000 kilo of CO2, while stimulating circular agriculture. Thanks to all our dedicated partners, being exemplary for many markets, the impact while still in early stage is already huge.
From our seaweeds we grow, we extract following. We've a special proprietary process which doesn't include chemicals, and is all processed locally:
Fibers Which we use as part of our biopolymer, which have stored CO2 and we want to keep these stored as long as possible
Liquids Our Bio-stimulant, containing all fruitful minerals, which we use as a fertiliser, and has been successfully applied in agriculture for five years now by the largest and one of Netherlands' first organic tulip farmers. This Bio-stimulant replaces the current fertilisers (fertilisers and the associated nitrogen problems) and makes the plant stronger, hence makes the use of pesticides unnecessary (as well a much discussed and controversial problem).
Proteins The proteins present in seaweed are used as part of our polymers. Secondly they can replace animal proteins (which are globally deficient). Our partners have successfully completed the large-scale research into the use of these proteins as fish feed (fish feed is still made from fish meal and soy).
Fresh Water Demineralised water is a waste stream, extracted ecologically from the cells of the seaweed. This water is now used to water the land. Potentially, this 'waste stream' which currently saves fresh water use, can be of interest for locations where little fresh water is available, such as remote areas e.g. deserts.
Scaling ecocompatible polymers
Founders of Wierwaar Klarenbeek & Dros first launched their algae and seaweed based polymers as eco-restorative and biodiversity-stimulating replacers of fossil based plastics back in 2015 (RTL Nieuws, NOS 2017), and developed it further over the years, on both micro and macro algae; Initiating design, education and product related appliances while setting up biolabs and algaelabs for design research, education and impact driven practices in both France and the Netherlands. In 2018 they won the New Material Award new-material-award.nl, and were nominated for the Beasley Design Award and the German Design Award. Recently their algae and seaweed based products are included in permanent collections of Center Pompidou in Paris, Cooper Hewitt, MoMA New York, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and many more. In January 2020 the World Economic Forum in Davos presented the Algae Lab project, developed together with Atelier Luma in Arles in 2019 www.bbc.com/news/av/business-51229544/davos-2020-algae-proposed-as-an-alternative-to-plastic, which is still developing and expanding in the Arles/Camargue region. As early as 2013, Klarenbeek & Dros succeeded in being the first to 3D print with living organic materials, based on fungal threads, called mycelium. This led to The Mycelium Chair, an armchair that is printed
and grown with minimal raw materials and energy, when matured the material gains strength through the root structure of the fungal threads. The chair has recently been included in the permanent collection of the Center Pompidou. With the project Seaweed Circle the designer couple wants to get ahead of the crowd again. In order to really stop plastic pollution, the focus has shifted to a step earlier in the production chain. Their 3D Bakery project previously proposed a decentralised production system (Winner: Strawberry Earth Academy Award) like the patisserie on the corner of the street, where objects can be printed in 3D from locally sourced organic materials. This concept was shown as a test setup at the exhibition Change the System, by demonstrating this principle on the basis of the antique glass collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, objects were reproduced with a homemade biopolymer from algae harvested from the museum's pond. This as an example of this hyperlocal material and production system.
Why seaweed
The raw materials (algae/seaweeds) from this new plastic substitute are grown in the sea locally. We only work together with local partners, pioneering in Europe on cultivating native and ecologically responsibly. The lab grown seaweed embryo's are natively sourced. Therefore the Seaweed Circle© is a fully ecologically closed production cycle. We do not use wild harvested seaweeds, which might damage ecology (like what happened on land with rainforests), but on the contrary; Restoring ecology. By supporting us, you support a chain of pioneers, varying from lab to seafarmers to land farmers, that use the liquid mass of our seaweeds to nitrify plants, thus reducing and eliminating artificial fertilisers and pesticides. Therefore our process nurtures sea, land and air, as these organisms are also masters in binding CO2 during growth from the beginning of evolution. By focusing on utensils (instead of disposables or single use
products), the products of Klarenbeek & Dros form a long-lasting carbon bonding, to store redundant CO2 in the atmosphere.
The end product is recyclable, compostable and circular. In addition, the cultivation of seaweed does not take up valuable agricultural land. It does not pollute, but actually restores our surrounding, because it binds the redundant of CO2 from the atmosphere into hard carbonaceous material. In addition, biostimulant (organic fertilizer) and drinking water are released when processed into a biopolymer material.
The cultivation of raw materials in the sea is also referred to as sea-farming. Because land for agricultural use is limited, there are many opportunities for farming at sea, and we are working on this new network daily to make it happen.
By setting up the Seaweed Circle we’re telling a story about water, the environment and climate change, but also gives insight in a future where we can grow and innovate within a new, circular and sustainable market.
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