Look: Caribbean battles record sargassum seaweed with boats, barriers and biofuel

MEXICO CITY: Hundreds of Mexican hotel workers, tractor operators and specialized Navy personnel are heading out to the beach each day at dawn to clean record masses of rotting sargassum seaweed off pristine Caribbean coastlines around popular tourist resorts. The seasonal phenomenon has caused hotels across the Caribbean to cut rates and invest millions of dollars in clearing up piles of the foul-smelling algae from their beaches, while governments and businesses look for solutions. Tourists walk at a beach covered with sargassum in Tulum, Mexico, Thursday, July 30, 2026. (AP) How it started Sargassum - a brown seaweed that forms floating mats on the ocean surface - was historically confined to the so-called Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic, but unusually strong winds around 2010 blew sargassum into nutrient-rich tropical waters off West Africa, where it found ideal growing conditions. The displaced seaweed turned into a self-sustaining belt that rides on ocean currents to northern Brazil and through the Caribbean, bringing masses of algae onto Caribbean island nations, the popular Riviera Maya and into the Gulf of Mexico. In the tropical Atlantic, sargassum feeds on nutrients running in from major rivers such as the Amazon, Orinoco and Congo rivers, as well as upswells from the deep ocean, Saharan dust and warming sea temperatures. Members of the Mexican Navy collect sargassum seaweed from a beach in the hotel zone in Tulum, Mexico, July 22, 2026. (Reuters) Where it's going The University of South Florida's Optical Oceanography Lab expects 2026 to be at least the second-largest year for sargassum abundance, with more seaweed likely to heap up around the Caribbean and southeastern Florida in coming months. Brian Barnes, research assistant professor at the university's College of Marine Science, who works in the lab, told Reuters the novelty of the phenomenon and its seasonality makes predicting its future course challenging. "Before 2010 there's nothing, and since then we've gone to up to 1 million metric tons over the entire area in 2011 to 40 million last year," he said, suggesting the seaweed could be doubling in mass every five years. Local resident Antonio Garcia tosses sargassum onto the shore as his grandson wades in Pelicanos beach in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP) Record numbers in Mexico In Mexico, authorities are looking to protect key tourist destinations along its picturesque Riviera Maya - including Cancun, Tulum and Playa del Carmen - by buying more boats to pick up sargassum and floating bigger barriers off the coast. Mexico, which collects the overwhelming majority of its sargassum after it lands on its beaches, has picked up some 96,151 metric tons this year, up from 92,783 tons last year, according to government data. Sargassum accumulates along the shoreline near a marina in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP) "Experience has taught us the best way to face sargassum is to intercept it in the sea before it hits our coasts," Mara Lezama, the governor of southern Quintana Roo state, told a press conference on Thursday. Federal Mexican officials are expecting a new open-sea sargassum vessel to arrive within a month, and are looking to source more ships from Japan and supply smaller Mexican-made vessels to the Dominican Republic. Carbon credits Some companies have sought to obtain carbon credits for sending out boats to make bales of sargassum - which releases methane as it decomposes - and then sinking these to the sea floor, but this practice has raised concerns about potential abuses, impacts on deep-sea ecosystems and over-harvesting offshore clusters. Sargassum gathers in the water off the coast of Tulum, Mexico, Thursday, July 30, 2026. (AP) "It's a balance because offshore sargassum is a natural habitat and there's tons of turtles and fish that live among it," Barnes said. "So if you try and sweep the Caribbean clean, you're going to have a lot of collateral damage." Barnes said many companies had contacted him for advice on carbon credit projects, but he was not convinced they would yield positive results. When life gives you sargassum The overabundance of sargassum has inspired a number of entrepreneurs to try to turn the seaweed into new energy sources or lucrative commercial products, overcoming challenges such as safely removing toxic metals absorbed into the algae. Environment Minister Alicia Barcena said that of close to 200 projects in Mexico at least 11 had the potential for scaling up industrially and 39 were already making products, ranging from fuel, fertilizers, laminates and bioplastics to craft sandals. Felix Navarrete, an executive at sargassum refiner Carbonwave, said his company was already selling fertilizer abroad and, after receiving a regulatory nod from Mexico's sanitary watchdog, was now looking to sell to domestic farmers. Carbonwave is also looking to supply materials to the cosmetic and textile s