The world produces around 350 million tonnes of plastic waste each year. India generates approximately 26,000 tonnes of plastic waste daily, according to a recent study by the Marico Innovation Foundation. This places India just behind the US and the European Union in terms of plastic waste generation.
A study by UNESCO suggests that plastic waste makes up 80% of all marine pollution. This escalating crisis in plastic waste management is demanding urgent action — and there’s one company that is on a mission to stop plastic pollution on land before it reaches the ocean.
Polymateria, a UK-based scale-up, has brought its biotransformation technology to India to prove that plastic can work harmoniously with nature. Incubated at London’s Imperial College in 2015, Polymateria conducted over 300 scientific experiments to build a technology that transforms plastic into a bio-available wax and returns it back to nature without leaving microplastics and toxins behind. The scale-up has also set up the world’s first Living Lab, at ToxIndia in Pune.
On how the technology works, Niall Dunne, CEO of Polymateria, told CNBC-TV18, “The problem with plastic in the natural environment is it’s incredibly persistent. So, we’ve come up with a way to make it perishable, but we have time controlled it so that we can set that fuse anywhere from six months to as long as three years. So, what that does is it allows you to, as a consumer, use the material, ideally reuse it and maybe even recycle it. But then, if it winds up in nature, once the time is up, it will return as quickly as one year, but in the Indian context with the living lab, we’ve done it as quickly as two years.”
“We have solutions for everything from bread packaging through to some of those non-woven materials that I was talking about, but really understanding how as India grows, we need solutions that will also meet their everyday needs and their usefulness,” Dune added.
Apart from India, Polymateria has launched the technology with partners across the globe, including the Extreme E racing series, Twickenham Stadium in the UK, and fashion brands in South East Asia. In March 2023, Polymateria and sustainable chemical company Indorama Ventures agreed on a ten-year partnership for non-woven products like wipes and nappies.
“PPE masks that we all had to wear through COVID. That’s all plastic. But also, every day materials like wipes and diapers, there’s 8 million tons of nonwoven material in the world. That’s all plastic. And Indorama are 14% of the global market and they have a stated ambition to get our technology into all of their nonwoven materials. So, that’s over a million tons of polyolefins,” explained Dunne.
“Then in terms of the kind of the everyday use case, we launched the technology at COP26 with King Charles two years ago, and we did cups for all the convening and the entertaining that was going on at those events up in Glasgow. And then, since then, we’ve seen huge growth in demand for those cups. So, those cups are now being used at sports events, concerts, venues, and by brands all around the world. It’s notable as Formula One.”
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Polymateria recently completed its Series B £20 million funding round led by Temasek-backed impact private equity fund ABC Impact and Indorama Ventures. The company is diversifying its technology from food packaging to agricultural applications. It aims to expand into new markets where fugitive plastic pollution is most acute, especially across Asia.
“We have only started to commercialise a couple of years ago, but as I aggregate across all of those years, we’re seeing double-digit growth and that’s across all of our key markets globally. India is obviously one of the most important where our pipeline there is incredibly exciting, but also the likes of Malaysia, where we’ve announced a partnership in just May last year with Lottie Titan, who are one of the big resin manufacturers in that part of the world and Lottie Titan, just from a comparison to India’s perspective, made millions of tons of polyolefins each and every year,” said Polymateria CEO.
In the next 10 years, the company aims to be the Tesla of Plastic and emerge as a clean-tech unicorn. “One of the things that Tesla has really done is create a ripple effect around electric vehicles. And I think if we can do the same around plastic where we can create that material science revolution where we will start to rethink not just how we’re using everyday materials like plastics, but also things like inks and adhesives,” stated Dunne.
According to Polymateria, plastic production is expected to increase by 40% in the next 10 years, with nearly 29 million tonnes per year going into the ocean. India has taken effective measures for plastic waste management by banning single-use plastic items and imposing Extended Producer Responsibility on plastic packaging. However, the primary challenge in India’s plastic waste management is recycling infrastructure.
Several startups like Ricron Panels, Bintix, and Ishitva Robotics Systems, have emerged in the plastics alternatives sector, creating options like biodegradable plastics, plant-based plastics, and recycled plastics — helping India pave the way towards a planet free of plastic for generations to come.
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