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Recycling single-use plastic waste from labs
CategoriesSustainable News

Recycling single-use plastic waste from labs

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Disposable plastics have become a crucial part of research and healthcare, especially for consumables like syringes and test tubes that need sterilisation. A lot of this laboratory and clinical plastic waste is sent to landfill or incinerated without a specialised recycling service.

This linear economy takes its toll on the environment. According to one study, lab-derived plastic waste could amount to 5.5 million tonnes a year around the globe. To address the problem, LabCycle has opened the UK’s first pilot plant that can recycle up to 60 per cent of plastic lab waste to make new lab equipment.  

Members of the LabCycle team have experience working in laboratories and were shocked by the amount of single-use plastic consumables that people had to go through in their daily work lives. In response, the company developed technology that enables contaminated plastic waste to be recycled from the laboratory to manufacture lab- and medical-grade consumables, promoting a circular economy approach within the research and healthcare sectors.  

After it is decontaminated, the plastic is turned into high-grade pellets the size of rice grains, which are then sent to LabCycle’s manufacturing partner to be transformed into new lab equipment like test tubes and Petri dishes. Waste doesn’t need to be sterilised beforehand, meaning less heat energy is required, and the company also specifies that water for the process can be reused, further reducing the environmental impact. 

LabCycle has recently set up its pilot recycling plant in a converted greenhouse on the University of Bath campus, and will be using the plant to recycle waste from the university’s engineering and science labs. The company is also working closely with the local NHS Blood and Transplant to repurpose their plastic waste. 

Single-use plastics pose a serious danger to the environment, but promoting a more circular economy can give these plastics a chance to be used again, instead of quickly being thrown into landfill. In the database, Springwise has spotted many innovations looking to boost circular practices, like trainers made from recycled waste materials or on-demand data that makes recycling easier.

Written By: Anam Alam

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A fashion re-commerce platform tackles textile waste in Africa
CategoriesSustainable News

A fashion re-commerce platform tackles textile waste in Africa

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Reports that consumers buy around 60 per cent more clothing than they did at the beginning of the century help to explain the vast amounts of textile waste generated around the world. Much of that waste ends up in the global south, compounding the problems those countries have with their own production excesses. While researchers expect the global textile recycling market to grow significantly in the next few years, to just under $10 billion (around €9.6 billion) by 2030, more still needs to be done to extend the life of clothing. 

In South Africa, startup Faro has partnered with a number of different fashion brands to create a new supply chain. Rather than dilute current markets with unsold goods, the company redirects overstock and returns to markets throughout the African continent. Pieces are sold for up to 70 per cent less than the original retail price. 

Faro helps reduce textile waste by preventing goods from being sent to landfill while also reducing the reliance that many communities in developing economies have on fast fashion. With much of fast fashion made from virgin fibres and synthetic materials, the re-commerce model brings products from reputable brands to communities that would otherwise buy knockoffs.  

Faro manages the entire process, beginning with buying from international fashion brands. The clothing is then sorted and, if needed, reconditioned, before being distributed to micro-merchants for direct-to-consumer sales. Such retailers are able to reach customers who are farther away from urban hubs and who generally have less disposable income. In addition to reselling clothing, Faro pledges to save an equivalent amount of textile waste from landfill through repurposing and upcycling by local artists.  

The company recently secured pre-seed funding and plans to open its first retail outlet in October 2023. Up to 20 stores are already being planned for, with at least five to open by mid-2024.  

Other solutions showcased in Springwise’s archive of ways in which innovators are reducing textile waste include an easy-to-remove yarn for fast disassembly and artificial intelligence (AI) size recommendations to help reduce returns.

Written By: Keely Khoury

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Turning pineapple waste into natural textiles
CategoriesSustainable News

Turning pineapple waste into natural textiles

By Zarkon Group,

It wasn’t that long ago that pineapples were seen as a luxury – but now they can be found on supermarket shelves all year round, fuelling a 400 per cent increase in global pineapple production since 1960. The downside of this phenomenal growth is 25 million tonnes of pineapple waste a year from the plant’s discarded leaves. Most of them are either burned or left to rot, generating high volumes of methane emissions, perhaps the most dangerous of the greenhouse gases.

Fast fashion has gone through a similar period of rapid growth in the last fifty years, with a similar impact on the environment. The sector is responsible for an estimated 10 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions and uses around 93 billion cubic metres of water per year – or four per cent of all freshwater extraction globally. This is set to double by 2030.

Ananas Anam has come up with a solution to both of these problems. Through repurposing the agricultural waste that comes from pineapple production it has created a series of natural textiles, Piñatex and Piñayarn, using the fibres from the discarded leaves. The leaves are collected in bundles before the long fibres are extracted using semi-automatic machines. The fibres are washed, dried naturally by the sun (or in a drying oven during rainy season) and then combined with a corn-based polylactic acid to create a non-woven mesh that forms the basis of the textiles.

As the name suggests, Piñayarn is a compostable and biodegradable yarn, while Piñatex offers a viable alternative to leather, doing away with the tanning process needed for animal skins that usually uses around 250 polluting chemicals. By not burning the leaves, there is also a CO2 emissions saving – the equivalent of 6 kilogrammes of CO2 for each 1 kilogramme of yarn produced.

Not only does this solution offer a circular approach to textile production, but it’s also good for the farmers who produce the pineapples – Ananas Anam supports rural farming communities in Bangladesh like Eco-Fresh Agro, fostering strong partnerships through their transparent supply chain, and demonstrating that by reusing resources, we can do so much more than just follow fashion.

Video and article credit: RE:TV

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Insecticide made from waste aloe peels
CategoriesSustainable News

Insecticide made from waste aloe peels

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: For centuries, aloe vera gel has been known for its healing properties, while its peels were considered agricultural waste. But when Dr. Debasish Bandyopadhyay observed that aloe peels, or rinds, were repelling insects, his curiosity prompted further investigation. Today, scientists report that this product no longer needs to go to waste, offering hope that hazardous pesticides can be replaced.

After drying out aloe vera rinds, researchers from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley uncovered that certain compounds contribute to their ability to ward off bugs. Amazingly, these identified compounds were non-toxic, meaning that an aloe-peel-based insecticide would be safe for humans, animals, and the environment.

The use of conventional chemical insecticides has been found to pose a significant risk to all forms of life on Earth, including humans. As Dr. Bandyopadhyay explained to Springwise: “Conventional pesticides frequently contain hazardous chemicals that harm the environment, including soil and water pollution, harm to organisms that aren’t the intended targets, and disturbance of ecosystems.” He concludes that “a safer option for pest control may be a natural insecticide prepared from aloe vera peel.”

The team is currently studying aloe rinds as a potential pesticide and repellent for other creatures not yet studied, including mosquitos and ticks. They will present their findings at the American Chemical Society’s autumn meeting.

Springwise has previously spotted other natural insecticides in the archives, from a nature-inspired bug repellent to a natural pesticide that does not harm beneficial insects.

Written By: Georgia King

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A modular system for boosting biogas production from waste
CategoriesSustainable News

A modular system for boosting biogas production from waste

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Organic waste makes up a huge proportion of all municipal waste, with around 17 per cent of global food production going to waste at the retail, restaurant, or household level. But what if that food wasn’t all wasted? What if some of it could be turned into renewable energy? That is the question being answered by New Zealand clean-tech startup Cetogenix. 

Cetogenix has designed a modular system for breaking down organic waste to generate renewable energy and other useful by-products, such as fertilisers and biodegradable plastics. The company’s technology uses a combination of chemical and microbial processes, which can be located at source and easily scaled. 

The flagship product, called CETO-Boost, is currently under development. When complete, it will allow a 40 per cent increase in the production of renewable natural gas from anaerobic digestion plants. It will also be capable of being retrofitted, and the company has identified more than 15,000 anaerobic digester plants that could benefit from this retrofitting. 

Cetogenix secured $4.5 million(around €4.1 million) in a 2022 seed funding round led by deep-tech investor Pacific Channel, with support from angel investors. The investment is being used to scale up the company’s technology and enable global deployment, with an initial focus on Europe and North America. 

This technology aims to tackle both organic waste and natural gas issues at the same time. In the archive, Springwise has spotted other methods for tackling these issues, including turning organic waste into bio-plastic and using methane pyrolysis to generate green hydrogen.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

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A sustainable composite lumber made from waste materials
CategoriesSustainable News

A sustainable composite lumber made from waste materials

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Imagine the ability to transform millions of tonnes of rubbish into useful materials, without any onerous sorting and cleaning processes. Waste technology company Ecogensus’ patented waste-derived lumber does just that. Using unsorted household waste, including organic material, the company’s Dynamic Organic Repolymerization (DOR) process creates sustainable, composite lumber strong enough to replace traditional building wood. 

Called EGS-6, the composite lumber is structurally reinforced, and the company is continually researching ways to increase the material’s strength and load-bearing ability. As well as building materials, Ecogensus provides a suite of additional waste management solutions.  

Introduced in 2023, the Rhino Recycling facility is a distributed hardware system that processes municipal solid waste. Available in a range of sizes, from 300 to 5,000 litres, the recycling facility handles everything from wastewater sludge to organic food waste and unsorted solids.   

As well as industrial recycling, Ecogensus also provides recycling as a service with its WeRecycle modules. The modules help upgrade current processing facilities and can work directly next to landfill sites for continuous energy and material production. A platform for monitoring sustainability goals and waste management, along with bioenergy fuel and home décor and furniture lines, are also part of Ecogensus’ broad range of products and services that help put municipal solid waste to good use.  

From artificial intelligence (AI) food waste management to river waste collection, Springwise has spotted a variety of examples of innovations in the archive seeking to find alternative uses for rubbish.

Written By: Keely Khoury

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AI-powered leak detection reduces water waste
CategoriesSustainable News

AI-powered leak detection reduces water waste

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Managing water well is increasingly important as the world is impacted by climate change. Yet water in buildings is unmanaged – delivered through unintelligent pipes that are unnecessarily costly and inefficient. The average household can lose 10,000 gallons of water every year due to leaks, and when a pipe breaks or leaks, escaping water can cause severe damage. With the help of artificial intelligence (AI), Israeli company Wint has found a way to change this: using intelligent pipes to detect water leaks and wastage. 

Using real-time AI, Wint’s breakthrough technology prevents water waste at the source. When there is a break or leak, the devices alert maintenance staff and can even automatically shut off water supplies when needed. Unlike other solutions, the AI system is constantly learning and adapting to different water networks, supporting systems from domestic water to air conditioning and heating to ensure the buildings can effectively manage the water throughout. 

Yaron Dycian, Wint’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer explains: “The built environment is one of the largest industries in the world sized at many trillions of dollars; it includes all construction sites, residential buildings, commercial buildings, etc… Yet this vast ecosystem is also one of the least technologically advanced one. Having built solutions for the most advanced users of IT technologies such as banks and e-commerce, I decided that it would make sense to help bring the benefits of IT to this relatively less IT-savvy world. Seeing the growing need for sustainability combined with the insurance impact of water leak damage, this seemed like an obvious area to address.” 

Recently, the company completed a funding round, raising $35 million (around €32.4 million) to drive growth for managing water through AI. 

Springwise has previously spotted other intelligent innovations in the archive tackling water scarcity through management, from an AI used to manage global water supplies to a data-driven water management system that ensures communities have enough fresh water.

Written By: Georgia King

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Making hi-tech nano-crystals out of organic fishing waste
CategoriesSustainable News

Making hi-tech nano-crystals out of organic fishing waste

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Material waste from the fishing industry, namely crustacean waste, amounts to around 6-8 million tonnes a year. One company is looking to use this waste to solve the problem of material alternatives to plastics. 

The present problem with plastic packaging films is that it’s difficult to achieve high strength, low permeability, and recyclability all in one material. The current market caters to low permeability and high strength but neglects recyclability, with these materials taking decades to be broken down and releasing harmful microplastics in the process. This is where Neptune Nanotechnologies comes in. 

The company is using its proprietary technology to transform the waste material of crabs, shrimps, and lobsters into highly valuable chitin nanocrystals. Neptune Nanotechnologies highlights that these nanocrystals are stronger than steel, lighter than plastic, and fully bio-based and biodegradable. The fully organic crystals replace current additives to base materials, like plastic and composites, that can be an obstacle to a product’s biodegradability.

The crystals solve the problems of performance by making the final nano-structured materials stronger, but equally, the weight reductions allow better efficiency and CO2 prevention downstream in transport. Neptune Nanotechnologies’ crystals have similar characteristics to other nanotech alternatives, including graphene and carbon nanotubes, but have the added bonus of also being biodegradable. 

This high performance means the crystals are suitable for a range of applications, like aerospace and automotive composites, high-barrier films and packaging, 3D-printed materials, and biomedical devices. Neptune Nanotechnologies is currently testing its technologies in these industries and is hoping to become completely commercialised soon. 

There are a number of innovators looking to rid the world of harmful, often plastic-based, materials. In the archive, Springwise has also spotted one startup that turns organic waste into planet-friendly plastic and another that creates footwear from food waste.

Written By: Archie Cox

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Turning organic waste into planet-friendly plastic
CategoriesSustainable News

Turning organic waste into planet-friendly plastic

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Petroleum-based plastics are everywhere in our daily lives, from our clothes and cosmetic products to food packaging and deliveries. Though plastic is highly useful, it’s carbon-intensive to manufacture and often isn’t recycled. In fact, of the seven billion tonnes of plastic that have been produced so far, only around 10 per cent has been recycled. 

One way scientists have been tackling the impact of plastic is by replacing it with bio-based alternatives. One of these innovators is Canadian startup Genecis, which creates pollution-free, totally biodegradable PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate) – a naturally occurring polymer produced by bacteria when they are fed organic waste like leftover food. 

At the end of its usable life, a PHA product will break down safely in the environment without leaving behind microplastics or leaching toxic chemicals. To become even more sustainable in future, the company hopes to use old PHA products as the feedstock for new Genecis bioplastic, creating an entirely closed-loop system and reducing the need for additional resources. 

Mirroring the versatility of traditional plastic, Genecis’ alternative PHA can be used in car interiors, clothing, and packaging. And because the material is natural, it is also safe to use in tools for medical procedures.

The company was recently awarded money from the Female Founder Initiative as part of Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund to help support female innovators. The online retail giant is “currently evaluating ways to use Genecis’ technology”, potentially in packaging for grocery and pharmacy items delivered by Amazon. As well as Amazon, Genecis is currently working with several corporate clients to help design sustainable bioplastic products for their specific use cases.

In the archive, Springwise has spotted a huge variety of other innovators also working to make more sustainable plastic alternatives, including one made from cellulose, and the world’s first biodegradable water bottle.

Written By: Matilda Cox

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3D weaving tackles fashion waste
CategoriesSustainable News

3D weaving tackles fashion waste

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: The fashion industry has been getting a lot of criticism lately for its unsustainable practices. And for good reason – 87 per cent of the fibres and materials used to make clothing will end up in either incinerators or landfills. Luckily, many companies are now working to solve this problem, including startup Unspun.

Unspun has developed a unique solution to make textile production more sustainable. The company has developed automated, 3D weaving micro-factories, called Vega, that can weave a pair of trousers in 10 minutes. The factories allow brands to make products locally, reducing the need for manufacturing in large quantities – a major cause of waste.

Unspun highlights that the textile industry’s slow adoption of new technologies has hindered progress in addressing fashion’s impact on climate change. The company hopes to change this by decentralising fashion production and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from shipping and waste.

Unspun recently announced it has raised $14 million (around €17.6 million) in a series A funding round led by Lowercarbon, which will be used to support the development of Vega micro-factories. The company is also developing techniques to ‘unspin’ garments back into yarns, so that they can be re-woven into new products. The ultimate goal is to help brands achieve a local, circular supply chain for woven products.

In addition to Unspun, Springwise has spotted a number of other innovations in the archive that are helping create a more sustainable fashion industry. These include the development of regenerative fibres and carbon-negative textiles.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

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