7 minute read
Recycling 22
Tom de Wilton, left, with CEO Dr Kyle Grant.
who care about our purpose as much as we do, and can be true ambassadors for the brand, which is why we capped the investment level at £5,000 per person.”
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He added: “We know being just another laundry app won’t cut it. Developing a model that is hyper local, carbon neutral and tech enabled, that reverses the sector’s adverse impact on the planet rather than adding to it, is absolutely critical.
“Partnering with the likes of Reckitt, The Oxford Foundry and Founders Factory, as well as being part of the Collective Impact programme with Virgin StartUp have given us access to some of the best minds in business which has undoubtedly been a leg-up for the business.
“There is a growing awareness and appetite for green washing services – and we’re confident that Oxwash can clean up and deliver substantial returns.”
Through the Reckitt partnership, Oxwash’s lagoons use sustainable formula Vanish 0% (part of the Vanish brand) to give old clothes a new lease of life, and help reduce the mountain of clothes ending up in landfill. The company also has a collaboration with luxury fashion rental business Hurr Collective, whose customers include Carrie Johnston.
Looking to the future, the ‘green cleaning’ market is expected to reach over $11 billion by 2029, so Oxwash is currently developing a modular, rapidly scalable model for cities across the UK and overseas.
And with 8000 individual customers, corporate clients like the Marriott Hotel Group, the NHS, the Astrazeneca Vaccine Trial and Peloton, plus a host of top-level investors on board, Oxwash has certainly hit the right cycle at the right time.
DR KYLE GRANT
CEO, Oxwash
oxwash.com
A British eco-friendly dental brand is developing the world’s first refillable toothpaste dispenser with biodegradable refill capsules.
HAPPIER BEAUTY
happierbeauty.com Happier Beauty has received a Smart Innovate grant of £150,000 to develop the dispenser, which aims to help eliminate single-use plastic tubes and pumps. The company has already devised a toothpaste which it claims is 100% recyclable.
The new toothpaste dispenser will be made of aluminium and 50% recycled plastic, so designed for multiple usage, while the refill capsules are biodegradable.
Together the products will provide an alternative to standard toothpaste tubes that are notoriously difficult to recycle and result in 1.5 billion plastic cast-offs ending up in landfill every year.
Happier Beauty has already debuted a planet friendly toothpaste tube made of aluminum which is easily recycled. However, the brand wants to create a more circular solution to the climate crisis.
The new toothpaste dispenser will allow consumers to refill using biodegradable capsules. The refill capsules will be sent out to customers as a subscription, along with the reusable dispenser in their first subscription. Customers will be able to choose the frequency of their subscription.
Founder of Happier Beauty, Faye Wilson, said: “It is becoming clear that recycling will not save us from the climate crisis, and so Happier Beauty wanted to take it one step further by creating a truly circular refillable and reusable solution.
“We are so excited to be the world’s first toothpaste company to bring a refillable toothpaste dispenser to market. Refills are becoming more popular across food and beauty so why not dental care? Toothpaste is a product we all use twice a day but innovation in this market has been pretty slow up until now.
“Our refills have numerous advantages for the planet, they are easy to biodegrade so reduce the amount of plastic going to landfills.”
The planned Energy Recovery Facility in Enfield.
BLACK BIN WASTE BECOMES GREEN ENERGY OF THE FUTURE
Unhygienic black bin bag waste will be transformed into energy for nearly 180,000 homes at the UK’s most advanced energy recovery facility.
North London Waste Authority (NLWA) has signed the contract for this pioneering project with infrastructure and renewable energy developer, ACCIONA, creating hundreds of job opportunities for local people, including at least 418 full time roles, 180 training placements and 90 apprenticeships. The public-owned Energy Recovery Facility (ERF) will transform black-bin waste into electricity for up to 127,000 homes, and heat and hot water for up to 50,000 local homes, eliminating the need for gas boilers. It will prevent black-bin-bag waste from ending up in landfill, where it generates greenhouse gas methane, which has a warming impact 30 times greater than CO₂. It will also save the equivalent of 215,000 tonnes of CO₂ each year, equivalent to taking 110,000 cars off the road. The ERF forms part of a £1.2 billion investment in Edmonton in Enfield known as the North London Heat and Power Project (NLHPP), serving seven north London boroughs*. It includes state-of-the art recycling and waste facilities with the most advanced technology in the world. The new facilities will replace a single energy-from-waste plant on the 16-hectare site, which began operating in 1971 and is now Europe’s oldest such facility. NLWA’s chair Clyde Loakes said: “With contracts signed and sealed with ACCIONA, work now begins on the next stage of one of the most sustainable and nationally significant projects ever to tackle waste and increase recycling rates, and one which greatly boosts employment opportunities in the area.” ACCIONA will build the ERF section utilising worldclass tech such as Selective Catalytic Reduction technology, which converts the nitrogen oxide created by incinerating waste into water and nitrogen, a harmless gas that makes up 78% of the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s the same tech used at the Amager Bakke/Copenhill ERF in Copenhagen, recently featured in the BBC’s Earthshot Prize, which even has a dry ski slope on the exterior because the pollution controls are so effective.
Cllr Loakes added: “In parallel with the project, NLWA’s focus continues apace on preventing waste in the first place by urging Government and business to make vital systemic changes and through ongoing community engagement. NLWA is leading the way on recycling too, dealing with difficult items such as mattresses and expanded polystyrene as well as ensuring recyclable plastic is processed only in the UK.”
NLWA has spent over eight years specifying an ERF that exceeds statutory requirements on environmental standards as well as due diligence to ensure value for money.
It’s estimated the ERF will save an estimated £20 million a year (or £1 billion over its lifespan) in third-party waste disposal. NLWA has already secured funds for the first stage of works with a loan of £280 million at extremely low interest rates from the Public Works Loan Board.
The facility also aims to install carbon capture after 2030, aligned with the development of a south-east industrial cluster.
*NLWA is the statutory waste authority serving the London boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington, and Waltham Forest.
NORTH LONDON WASTE AUTHORITY
nlwa.gov.uk/home
KELPI BIOTECH INNOVATOR
kelpi.net
THE PIONEER BIOTECH TURNING SEAWEED INTO BIOPLASTICS
Sustainable biotech innovator Kelpi has secured funding to further develop its pioneering technology creating bioplastics from seaweed.
Kelpi’s compostable bioplastic packaging for food is now a step closer to the supermarket shelves, with the aim to replace single-use fossil fuel plastics.
The Bath-based start-up will use the funds to scale up development of prototype bioplastic packaging that is compostable, marine-safe and carbonnegative. “This landmark investment enables Kelpi to advance its work as one of just a handful of companies worldwide using seaweed to create entirely new bioplastic packaging solutions,” said Kelpi co-founder and CEO Neil Morris. “We set out to play a part in eliminating plastic pollution and enabling net zero. This funding will allow us to accelerate progress towards achieving that goal using seaweed - a natural, renewable biomass that has huge potential to sequester carbon and sustainably address climate change.”
Kelpi will use the investment to prototype packaging solutions for a range of clients primarily in the food industry. Kelpi focuses particularly on thin films which have some of the lowest recycling rates of any plastic, with less than 1% being recycled in the UK according to WWF (2018 report).
Right now, more than 99% of plastics are produced from chemicals derived from oil, natural gas and coal — all of which are dirty, non-renewable resources. If current trends continue, by 2050 the plastic industry could account for 20% of the world’s total oil consumption, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.
Kelpi already has sourcing agreements in place with seaweed suppliers in Europe, as well as Asia where most of the world’s seaweed is currently cultivated.
The pre-seed round – a combination of private and public sector funding – was led by Bristol Private Equity Club (BPEC) combined with a linked Innovate UK ‘Combined Investor Partnership’ grant landed through SETsquared’s Regional Angel Investment Accelerator (RAIA) programme.
