Harvested seaweed to help industries

Sargassum seaweed has been a scourge in the eyes of many Barbadians,
but Barbados National Oil Company Limited (BNOCL) Renewable Energy
Officer and Advisor to the Minister of the Blue Economy, Mark Hill,
has explained that it can and will be used in a positive way.

He was at the time speaking at a display of the Aquamarine harvester,
recently purchased by the Government of Barbados to aid in the fight
against the sargassum seaweed which, as he explained, began in 2018.
Hill said that the focus had been on innovation and industry, which
included harvesting the seaweed in order to use it for value-added
purposes and not just cleaning.

“To that end we have used it for the production of substrates, for
making various types of applications such as manufacturing of
bio-composite materials, production of biofuels, the utilisation of
seaweed as a soil amendment and the development of marine-based
fertilisers, ocean-based compost and as a catalyst for marine biotech
development,” outlined Hill.

The renewable energy officer stated that over the last two years, the ministry had been harvesting and doing real-world applications of the sargassum seaweed as a resource for increasing crop production.

“We have been applying the seaweed that we have harvested through a
number of teams since 2019, which then comes to a demo lab in
Portvale, St. James and from there we apply it to the crops in order
to demonstrate the type of yield and increase in yield,” said Hill.

Expanding further, the advisor stated that the harvested seaweed would
be used to help innovate industries and not discarded as garbage. He
also announced the launch of a biofuel drive, which would come on
stream this year through a partnership between the Ministry of the
Blue Economy and the BNOCL.

“In the renewable energy space, the Ministry of Blue Economy would
play a critical role in helping to provide that substrate for these types of biofuels.” (AS)