Enzless Solutions
Ever since we learned to make polyethylene terephthalate or PET from fossil fuels, they have become an integral part of our modern lives and they have been incorporated in every part of our society, from the clothes we wear, the carpets we walk on, and the packaging of our foods. Over the years, recycling has been adopted as a tool that we use to make ourselves feel good about the plastic we consume everyday. Having our products be recycled into new material helps us sleep better knowing that we’re a more sustainable society. We’ve been tricked into believing that we’ve created a circular economy through recycling. But this is clearly wrong! Globally, 56% of plastic is sent to landfills, 25% is incinerated, and only a mere 19% is recycled.
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Our ecosystem and our health are at risk.
the team
For the project, our team - a mix of business and science - went into data gathering together. We interviewed over 40 key opinion leaders from the recycling industry to understand the flaws in the traditional recycling methods. Their opinions were organized in a document and then extracted to find commonalities. It was clear that traditional recycling wasn't working.
Given the expertise in genome science, bioinformatics, bioengineering and quantum physics, our team started looking into new ways of recycling plastic.
ideation
Over a few weeks, the team sat down multiple times a week to brainstorm potential solutions. The primary challenge is that plastic loses its quality each time it's recycled until it cannot be anymore and reaches a landfill. Our hypothesis stated that we could achieve infinite recyclability if we depolymerize plastic. To validate this, we set out to find naturally occurring enzymes that depolymerize plastic and find a way to speed up that process for commercialization.
Validation
We interviewed ten stakeholders weekly and collected feedback to help us draw the ideal customer profile, determine their needs and pain points and understand how the plastic recycling industry works. The hypothesis was tested weekly and rephrased to validate the next week until we observed similarities.
the business
This gave us the confidence to draw up the market size and conduct competitor analysis. Understanding these details, helped us understand the feasibility of the concept and begin thinking of prototyping.
prototyping
Most of the prototyping was done in labs where we wanted to experiment with two enzymes that we believed would be able to pull it off. We found the enzymes by developing a two-fold prototyping plan: first by creating an enzyme discovery platform using bioinformatics and second enzyme benchmarking which is essentially looking for the best enzyme for the depolymerization.
what we learnt
We got the buy-in from three industry leaders willing to act as advisors for the project if we decided to move ahead. Finally, we presented our findings to the investors as part of our final deliverable. We further included the cost-benefit analysis of the project and the roadmap for the next five years to understand the funding required to make this a reality. The most significant comment from one of the investors was, "Call me when your enzyme works."
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