The intention of this project is to scope the requirements for a viable algal bioplastics hub in regional NSW, describe the implications of different potential systems and highlight where further investigations are required. As such, it does not provide an evaluation of specific regional attributes.

Nor does the report focus on important but ultimately uncontrollable factors—also known as ‘critical uncertainties’ or ‘known unknowns’ (Crawford 2019)—such as the broader political environment, oil price volatility and so on. The project focuses on sets of factors relevant to a short-to-medium term growth oriented future pathway with a relatively low deviation in terms of implications and requirements.

This report primarily presents qualitative research. The assumptions, aims and scope of the work has, however, received formative guidance throughout by technical expertise internal to the broader research team, including expertise in: biopolymer science, marine biology and product design prototyping. Experiments from the first phases of material testing by the design team are included in the Appendix.