Is a new plastic that safely biodegrades in water a sea change for our planet?

Synthetic, single-use plastic. It transformed our world and our supply chains.

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But there’s the flip side. The packets and bags that take decades to decompose, oceans clogged with detritus, microplastics found everywhere from Everest to our most intimate innards.

British company Aquapak is offering a solution — literally. Its Hydropol polymer material is a plastic that can fully dissolve in water. "It’s like sugar in tea," CEO Mark Lapping tells me.

All plastics are polymers, petroleum-derived molecules. Hydropol functions like a plastic, until it is immersed in water. "Most plastic polymers are hydrophobic, so they form microplastics that hang around forever," explains Lapping. "Hydropol is hydrophilic, so it can’t form the harmful microplastics that hydrophobics can. It will dissolve, go into solution, then fully biodegrade."

Microplastics are plastics that have degraded to between 1mm and 5mm and are, crucially, insoluble in water. Once Hydropol dissolves, it won't ever form back together. "It will fully biodegrade, ultimately ending up as a carbon atom,’ says Lapping.