Rethinking plastic recycling

Samantha Anderson, Co-Founder and CEO of DePoly

2 min read

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The world has a big plastic problem. Around nine million tons of waste plastic covers the planet. Polyester-based plastics and textiles take up to 500 years to degrade in landfills. And only easily recycled plastic like bottles and clean packaging gets reused – accounting for less than 10% of all plastic waste.¹
A current approach is to incinerate the waste. This keeps the materials away from landfills. But avoiding dangerous emissions is complex and costly.
DePoly is a chemical recycling company tackling the problem head on – with its unique recycling technology that converts plastics and textiles back into their raw components.
Those components are sold back to businesses for making new products. Better still, the components are pure "virgin quality", which means businesses don't have to choose between these recycled materials and their harmful petrol-based equivalents. Companies using DePoly's recycled components rather than petrol-based equivalents can reduce their carbon footprints by 65%.¹
DePoly's system operates at room temperature and standard pressure – and sidesteps the traditional need to sort, melt or separate materials. The system processes a huge range of waste, including mixed plastics, multi-blended fabrics, composites and dirty industrial items.
To demonstrate the technology's huge potential, DePoly's plant currently recycles 50 tonnes a year. The company is also building a plant that can handle 500 tonnes a year.
DePoly's co-founder, Samantha Anderson, received her PhD from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in October 2019. Samantha is an organic and material chemist experienced in business development, patenting and scaling chemical processes.

¹https://www.depoly.co

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My vision is to eliminate unnecessary plastic incineration and production from oil – lowering greenhouse gas emissions while cleaning up our environment.