Changing the Face of Plastic Waste
Although the world’s plastic consumption problem seems herculean to tackle (try coming to terms with the mind-boggling amount of plastic we use and dump), these visionary companies believe that their sustainability solutions work and are set to change the
Although the world’s plastic consumption problem seems herculean to tackle (try coming to terms with the mind boggling amount of plastic we use and dump), these visionary companies believe that their sustainability solutions work and are set to change the face of plastic waste.
Miniwiz
Miniwiz was founded in 2005 by architect and structural engineers Arthur Huang and Jarvis Liu to address the great disparity between sustainability and environmental consciousness and the lack of financially feasible applications. Modelled around the closed-loop system, the innovative recycling company turns post-consumer waste into high performance materials that can be used in various products such as furniture, iPhone covers and interior and exterior building structures. It was recognised by the World Economic Forum as a technology pioneer in the Energy/ Environment/ Infrastructure category for the positive impact it has made on the world’s environmental and economic development. Miniwiz is dedicated to promote the mass adoption of a zero-waste circular system and has developed more than 1000 recycled materials which have been used in their various projects around the world.
EcoArk Pavilion (Taipei, Taiwan)
The nine-story high EcoARK Pavilion in Taipei is the world’s first fully functional structure made from POLLI-Bricks ¬¬— a building material innovated by Miniwiz from recycling 1.5 million plastic bottles.
House of Trash (Milan, Italy)
With the majority of the trash being sourced locally, the luxurious House of Trash in Milan has what used to be food packaging, mobile phones and fashion waste repurposed into furniture and decorative items all around the office and gallery space.
“PHA emulsion coatings can replace polyethylene used to line food packaging”
Sky Lane (Thailand)
Miniwiz collaborated with Sky Lane, a cycling park in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, to make a leaf-shaped shelter out of recycled bottles collected from cyclists.
Trashpresso
Trashpresso is the world’s first mobile and off-grid recycling plant powered by solar energy. Housed in a shipping container, the portable solar powered recycling plant turns plastic waste into tiles that can either be used for decorative or architectural purposes. The mobile recycling facility’s pilot test on the Tibetan Plateau was featured in a National Geographic documentary titled Jackie Chan’s Green Heroes.
RWDC Industries
Utilising groundbreaking technology, the biotech start-up founded in 2015 specialises in making bioplastics that are fully biodegradable. Their response to the market requirements in the area of single-use food service and food packaging applications was polyhydroxyalkanoate or simply, PHA — a biodegradable plastic material made from bacterial fermentation of either plant-based oils or sugar.
A versatile product, PHA is widely known to be the world’s only commercially viable biodegradable plastic. It is certified to fully biodegrade in soil, water and marine conditions within weeks, releasing no toxic chemicals in the process.
With a highly experienced team of scientists, engineers, financiers and marketers, RWDC idea to create PHA based straws won them S$980,000 in funding at the 2018 inaugural edition of Temasek Foundation’s Ecosperity Liveability Challenge in Singapore. The PHA straw prototype was produced in November 2018 and there are plans to make them commercially available from mid-2019.
Besides straws, the company is also looking into producing PHA emulsion coatings for paper and paperboard to replace polyethylene that is currently used to line food packaging. Not only will their alternative be biodegradable, paper and paperboard coated with RWDC’s PHA emulsion coating will also be easily recyclable in existing recycling systems.
Having secured a further funding of US$13 million recently, RWDC, headquartered in Singapore, will be expanding its PHA production facility and capacity in the US state of Georgia. This expansion will allow them to produce PHA-based alternatives to replace the existing polyethylene-based products for the global market at affordable prices.