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DePoly SA - Winner

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DePoly SA - Winner

Project SummaryDePoly SA closes the cycle of PET plastic recycling with an innovative technology. Your support of CHF 50 will help build a pre-demo plant and reduce PET production emissions.

Background

The world is experiencing a climate crisis, and the activism exemplified by Greta Thunberg means that consumers are demanding government and industry act to make the world more sustainable. This demand means that sustainability will be a key social and economic driver in the coming years, in which there will be a constant economic trade-off between energy and resources.
The plastics industry, and how we deal with waste plastic is an area that can be overlooked when one considers reducing CO2 emissions. Poly(ethylene terephthalate), widely known as PET, is a semi crystalline thermoplastic polyester that is used in a variety of industries in the form of fibers, sheets, films, and bottles. Recently, it has been reported that the world consumption of PET is approximately 56 million tonnes per year, with its estimated forecast to exceed that by 2021 due to an annual increase of 3.6 %. As of 2015, it has been estimated that only 9% of plastic has been recycled, 12% incinerated, and 79% has accumulated in our landfills or the natural environment.  It has also been reported that while other industrial sectors can lower their carbon footprint, the petrochemical industry which produces PET, will have to completely transform itself in order to meet CO2 targets that governments are beginning to make legally binding.  This will necessitate producing plastics in a different way, otherwise the industry will ultimately increase their greenhouse gas emissions, eroding climate benefits obtained through decarbonization of the energy sector.
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Idea

At the moment, there is no viable closed loop chemical recycling system in place for PET and other polyester based plastics. This includes, mix blend cloths such as polyester/cotton and polyester/polyamide. To overcome this, DePoly has developed a new technology to close the recycling loop by chemically recycling PET plastic at room temperature and pressure. The raw material produced are then sold back to industry, giving the access to a sustainable source of chemicals for PET resin production, and allowing us to indirectly decrease our CO2 emissions by making the exact same chemicals as the oil industry from our post consumer waste.
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Implementation

The technology has been validated on a 1 kg batch scale, and soon in a pre-demo plant which is being built at UTO in Sion, Valais, Switzerland. Following the construction and operation of this plant, a commercial plant will be build and operational by 2023 before expansion into new markets.
The chemicals we produce are tested and compared against industry standards to ensure that we meet the proper specifications for bottle production.
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Initiators

DePoly SA was founded by Dr. Samantha Anderson, Dr. Christopher Ireland and Dr. Bardiya Valizadeh. We work with chemical companies, producers, and recyclers, as well as with accelerators and incubators such as The Ark/CleanTechAlps, Venture, Venture Kick, Climate-Kic and Mass Challenge.
Quote of Prof. Mariana Christen Jakob; Co-Founder SEIF Invest and jury member of "Together against climate change"-Challenge:
"I was impressed by the technology, the strong founder team the circular business model which have the potential to make a huge impact and a scalable solution to solve different SDG challenges.:"
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DePoly SA wins the online pitch “together against climate change”.

DePoly Sa completely convinced a prestigious jury with an innovative technology for an optimised PET plastic recycling circuit and won the online pitch by there-for-you.com and MassChallenge Switzerland.

The jury, whose members included Dr Ian Roberts, Chief Technology Officer at Bühler, Prof. Mariana Christen Jakob, Founder and Managing Partner at SEIF and Pascale Bruderer, Former Member of the Council of States, assessed the feasibility and effectiveness of the projects.

It is inspiring to see not only the degree of technological innovation that these projects present, but the passion that the entrepreneurs have to create meaningful solutions. All entrepreneurs are targeting key issues of our times, asking themselves what is the root cause of the problem, how can it be best addressed and how can current value chains be disrupted to achieve a more sustainable path.
Ale Rojas

DePoly shows promising progress towards a huge business and impact opportunity. I particularly liked the strong focus on pricing and being able to compete against virgin plastic.
Myke Näf

I am pleased to see this collaboration between there-for-you.com and MassChallenge, founded on shared values and a desire to support start-ups with the potential to impact climate change. The five start-ups we saw today were excellent and if we are honest, in our battle against climate change, we need all of them to be successful and to act at scale. We were tasked with picking one winner and we chose dePoly. They will face many challenges, but they have the potential to make a systemic change in our fight against plastic pollution. If they can unlock the value in collecting plastics, by efficiently and cost effectively recycling, then we will make a significant step forward.
Ian Roberts

there-for-you.com, MassChallenge Switzerland and the jury would like to extend their warmest congratulations to the DePoly SA team on their victory and wish them every success in implementing their business idea.

Andreas Anthamatten 100,00 CHF
Marion Schmitz 20,00 CHF
Currently, there are still no project partners if you are interested, please contact us via info@there-for-you.com.

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