Healthcare is awash in single-use plastics. In U.S. healthcare services alone, greater than 2,800 tons of plastic packaging and merchandise are thrown out each day.
Few persons are extra conscious of this than Eddie Yu. Early within the pandemic, Yu based an organization that made disposable masks. Someday, his niece was with him whereas he was sorting recycling, and she or he requested him whether or not his masks was additionally recyclable.
“I told her that actually we can’t recycle the mask,” he instructed TechCrunch. “She just interrupted me and said, ‘Oh, then you make a lot of trash every day.’”
The little lady’s phrases caught with Yu, and after promoting the masks firm in 2021, he got down to make amends.
In an effort to tame healthcare’s single use plastic downside, Yu’s new firm, Okosix, has developed a brand new bio-based, biodegradable polymer. Okosix is a part of Startup Battlefield, and it will likely be presenting at TechCrunch Disrupt later this month in San Francisco.
Okosix blends varied compounds together with cellulose, chitosan derived from crustacean shells, wax, and a proprietary materials. The result’s cheaper than polylactic acid (PLA), a broadly used biodegradable plastic, with performance that’s “the same or even better than PLA,” Yu mentioned.
Amongst plastics, the time period “biodegradability” is usually misused, Yu mentioned. Some require very particular situations to decompose, whereas others merely crumble into micro- or nanoplastics.
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“We’ve got international certifications to prove that the material is completely gone in six months,” Yu mentioned.
Okosix is beginning with face masks, however it plans to additionally make surgical robes, diapers, and sanitary napkins, Yu mentioned. “We want to use a safe material, non-plastic, to replace fossil plastics for disposable products.”
Although the corporate has but to carry out a proper lifecycle evaluation, Yu mentioned that Okosix’s materials ought to have a carbon footprint that’s 90% decrease than that of polypropylene, a widely-used single-use plastic.
Okosix sells its materials to 3rd events, which then flip it into varied merchandise. “At the moment, our business model is like Gore-tex,” Yu mentioned. “We don’t make the finished products, but we make the layer, we make the raw materials, and then we work with companies like 3M.” He added that branding might turn into a major a part of the enterprise, much like Gore-tex.
The startup has raised $2.3 million, together with investments from the founders and different angel buyers.
Hear extra from Okosix and dozens of different startups firsthand, take part in helpful workshops, and make lasting connections at this 12 months’s Disrupt, going down October 27 to 29 in San Francisco.
