Opportunity: The opportunity I have identified is Sargassum seaweed piling up around the coasts of Florida. The local county and municipal governments of coastal areas of Florida want the seaweed removed in a way that doesn't erode the beach or harm sea turtles. Then after the removal you would be left with tons of seaweed which has been identified by Milledge, Nielson, and Bailey as having the potential to be converted into high value products. The lowest initial development cost of which being fertilizer.
"Macroalgae (seaweeds) have been used by mankind for generations as a food and for soil conditioning or fertiliser. Global utilisation of macroalgae is a multibillion dollar industry (Smit 2004) with world production of seaweed increasing, between 1970 and 2010 from 2 million to 19 million tonnes fresh weight (Yeong et al. 2014). The current uses of seaweeds include human foods, fertilisers, phycocolloids and cosmetic ingredients (Kraan 2013), with Asia being the main market (Kelly and Dworjanyn 2008; Roesijadi et al. 2010a). However, seaweed is still considered an under-utilised resource worldwide (Marquez et al. 2014). The chemical composition of seaweed has been reported for a variety of species, a selection of which is shown in Table 1."¹
Product/Service: It would be a two part business. One part removing/acquiring the seaweed and the second converting it into fertilizer. I would offer a management/removal of seaweed service to the beach management branch of the coastal Florida county and municipal governments affected by the issue. They are already spending money dealing with the issue since the presence of decaying seaweed degrades the quality of their beaches, discourages tourists from visiting those beach and thus reduces revenue generated from tourists. There is also a state sponsored "Beaches Funding Program" where the state of Florida itself subsidizes county beach management projects. Then I would dry the seaweed and convert the seaweed into fertilizer to package and sell either locally or online as specialty fertilizer. The costs of the removal of the seaweed and private profit generated would be divided amongst the county government, the state government and the purchaser of the fertilizer.
References
1. Milledge, J. J., Nielsen, B. V., & Bailey, D. (2016). High-value products from macroalgae: the potential uses of the invasive brown seaweed, Sargassum muticum. Reviews in Environmental Science and Bio/Technology, (1), 67. https://doi-org.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/10.1007/s11157-015-9381-7
Hey Cesar! I liked how you included references which really adds credibility to the claims made about your problem. Could the seaweed be used to make other things too? Another thing to note is potential companies that already do something similar.
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