The non-degradability of most plastic packaging materials and the deficiency in recycling infrastructure on a global scale causes huge environmental problems. To address this problem, packaging materials produced from natural macroalgae polymers are a very promising alternative. The cultivation potential for macroalgae is huge and they are not in competition to food crops. Although the basic idea of using macroalgae polymers for thin film production was already described in 1934, the innovation has not established itself in the market. The primary reasons include lack of social and political interests, and insufficient technical solutions for industrial production. This review presents an overview on the changing attitudes of the populace towards the indiscriminate use of non-biodegradable packaging materials and the state-of-the-art processes for solid and flexible packaging production from natural macroalgae polymer. A novel and promising approach – semi-dry extrusion, to produce a 100% algae-based packaging material is presented here. The semi-dry extrusion of minimally processed algal biomass into different packaging products presents several benefits in terms of production cost, efficient use of water and energy resources, increased variety of products and reduced negative environmental impacts.