Should we eat it, throw it on the garden or clean up the environment with it?

Three University students will spend a chunk of this summer examining whether sea lettuce is an environmental nuisance or a valuable resource.

And we might have an answer to that longstanding and vexing question by the time we return from the festive holidays.

Sea lettuce festoons the shoreline at this time of year and Priority One and the University of Waikato is using its unwelcome arrival to test ways of encouraging regional innovation.

The Summer Marine Innovation Lab will involve university students working on projects that apply science, design thinking and business disciplines to investigate the value or benefit that can potentially be gained from sea lettuce.

The three students will take on different aspects of the sea lettuce, with Suzy Twaddle of the University of Waikato looking at its potential uses. 'I'm testing out whether this can be used to improve soil or plant health, and also its potential as a product for human consumption in a similar style to sauerkraut.”

Eva Lichtenberg-Cloo, from University of Auckland, will find ways of mapping sea lettuce using Geographic Information System software. 'This will help environmental management but also may be useful in supporting any possible commercial uses,” says Eva.

Miles Buob, from University of Wisconsin-Madison, is studying bioremediation – or the use of microbes in sea lettuce to clean up contaminated soil and ground water. 'I'm hoping to demonstrate how sea lettuce could improve the quality of water and treat waste.”

The project is under the supervision of Dr Ralf Schlothauer, most recently the chief technology officer at Comvita. 'We're using the tools of science and design thinking to come up with solutions that take this thing that is considered a pest to something that is a source of environmental and economic benefit.”

The project is based at the University of Waikato's Coastal Marine Station at Sulphur Point. 'The one rule is they [the students] are not are allowed to produce a boring report as their final output,” says Ralf. 'We are pushing the team to come up with prototypes, test them and make products from their work that are engaging and useful.

In the past celebrity chef Peter Blakewell provided The Weekend Sun with a recipe for new season potatoes swimming in sea lettuce butter and drizzled with more chopped sea lettuce. Boil some new season potatoes. Keep them firm. Wash a little sea lettuce thoroughly and soak for 20 minutes in fresh water. Warm some butter and add the sea lettuce, season and blitz with a wand or in a blender. Pour it over the potatoes and garnish with more chopped sea lettuce.

Amber Gleeson finds another use for the sea lettuce. Photo: Deborah Evans.