Turning plastic into something fantastic
● In her first year of a PhD in crop science and microbiology at Stellenbosch University, Dominique Rocher is making waves with her company, Urobo Biotech, which uses enzymatic and microbial processes to transform bioplastic waste into “a highvalue commodity”.
She and final-year PhD student Wessel Myburgh — who was recently scouting for investors at COP28 in Dubai — came up with the idea as a possible answer for waste management companies battling to deal with bioplastics, which generally end up in landfills or incinerators.
“Without bioplastics waste management, the plastics pollution crisis will continue to intensify and contribute to the complete destruction of Earth,” she said.
“At Urobo Biotech our customers’ problems include organic waste that causes processing problems and leads to removal and disposal costs ... so our vision is to take this low-value, problematic waste and transform it into a high-value commodity.”
They will be filing a patent application at regional level early next year.
“Our project plan includes piloting our technology in 2025 with our industrial partner Etra, in Italy, followed by industrialscale process design with our international partner BTS in 2026.”
Rocher, 28, is part of a global team including Myburgh and two professors from Stellenbosch and Padua, Italy, and they have attracted funding and won several awards.
“We have a five-year budget of $300,000 [about R5.5m] or $500 000 depending on whether you want the RollsRoyce or Volkswagen version. We already have funding from Italy and American organisation Founder.org that invests in student entrepreneurs.”