Tackling plastic air pollution and waste is among the many most pressing problems with our time, because the non-biodegradable materials is more and more discovering its approach into pure ecosystems, disrupting wildlife and contaminating every part from to the water we drink to the soil that grows our meals. It goes with out saying that lowering plastic consumption is a key precedence throughout the globe, as is establishing correct recycling strategies for plastic merchandise, which might create a extra round financial system for the artificial materials and hold it out of the setting. Such is the aim at DePoly, a Switzerland-based cleantech that has developed a know-how for recycling PET waste into virgin-grade uncooked supplies.
The corporate was based in 2020 and has already made massive influence, being named the 2024 Know-how Pioneer on the World Financial Discussion board. Now, with $23 million in current seed funding, the startup is scaling up its capabilities with the opening of a showcase plant with a 500-tonne-per-year recycling capability. The power and DePoly’s rising operations could possibly be important for the polymer 3D printing trade, the place PET is a key consumable. Not solely might 3D printed PET waste be recycled, however PET filaments and pellets might in the future be derived from post-consumer and post-industrial waste recycled by DePoly.
PET is a extensively consumed materials, utilized in artificial textiles, drink bottles, meals containers and extra. And whereas the fabric is totally recyclable, research in recent times have proven that solely about 30% of PET bottles and jars are literally recycled. With its upcoming facility in Monthey, Switzerland, DePoly is progressing in its mission to scale up its recycling know-how, which may flip even soiled post-consumer PET into contemporary virgin-grade uncooked materials, growing the viability of recycling plastics.
“The upcoming showcase plant validates our roadmap to creating a really round plastics market,” mentioned Samantha Anderson, co-founder and CEO of DePoly. “Following our pilot and showcase plant, our subsequent aim is to scale our operations to industrial dimension with a primary of a form business plant based mostly on our know-how.”
The showcase plant is predicted to open this summer time and can spotlight DePoly’s proprietary course of, which turns PET into its unique monomers (PTA and MEG). Furthermore, the corporate’s course of doesn’t depend on using warmth or stress, which means they’ll course of unsorted post-consumer and post-industrial waste with out important power consumption. “We’re satisfied our know-how is without doubt one of the quickest to scale and can permit us to compete with virgin pricing at scale, a key issue for fulfillment,” added David Hanf, DePoly CFO.
In response to the corporate, this course of can flip something from water bottles to polyester shirts into virgin-grade uncooked supplies—an identical to their oil-based counterparts—that can be utilized as constructing blocks for brand new merchandise, together with bottles, high-performance textile fibers, beauty packaging and extra. To this point, DePoly has labored with quite a lot of firms to show and validate this functionality, together with sportswear model Odlo and plastic fabrication firm PTI.
