Atlanta-based company's biodegradable straws shield baby corals from predators

ATLANTA - Biodegradable straws made by an Atlanta-based company are now being used to help save coral reefs. Scientists are using them to form a barrier to protect growing coral. 

About a year ago, the team at Phade by WinCup learned researchers used their biodegradable straws to protect the baby coral in a straw fort of sorts. 

Scientists place the corals into the ocean after they are grown in a lab. 

"They tried some steel cage devices to protect the coral. They tried some PVC type devices to protect the coral. Both of those things ended up having a lot of algae build up, and restricted water flow, which ended up killing the baby coral as well," Michael Winters, President and CRO of WinCup, said. 

The biodegradable straws will slowly fade away in about three months giving the coral time to grow strong enough to fend off predators like parrotfish that like to eat the baby corals. 

"It takes the survivalship from about 40 percent survival to over 90 percent," Winters said. 

"The only thing left in the water during the biodegration process is CO2, just like us, when we breathe, we breathe out CO2 and water," Brad Laporte, CEO of WinCup, added. 

So far, crews have placed just under 200 forts off the coast of Fort Lauderdale and Honolulu where the corals face different risks. 

"The problem on the east side of the United States is parrotfish. The problem in the Hawaii area is actually sea urchins that destroy the coral, and this is actually working to protect it from sea urchins. It really protects anything from any type of marine predators," Laporte said. 

Coral loss is a growing problem worldwide. Rising ocean temperatures have killed about 14 percent of the world's coral in a decade, according to the most recent data from the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network.

Coral reefs also support about a quarter of all marine species. 

"Super important to those marine species for their survival is to have a coral structure that they can live within and obviously this does that for them," Laporte said. 

"We're really an unintended consequence of innovation. We didn't know our products were going to be used for such a really cool, meaningful purpose," Winters added.