All Facts & Findings

Plastic bags

are the most commonly ingested type of plastic

Along with other ‘film-like items’ plastic bags are a major cause of death for marine life in the world's oceans.

In 1997

sailor Charles Moore was making his return journey across the Pacific Ocean

Diverting off the usual course, Moore discovered what we now know as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: an area filled with plastic waste estimated to cover 1.6 million square kilometres (roughly the area of Iran).

Thulin's son says:

“To my dad, the idea that people would simply throw these away would be bizarre.”

Raoul Thulin, the son of Sten Gustaf Thulin told BBC Environment Reporter, Laura Foster, that his dad would be shocked and upset to see what it's become.

By 1979

plastic bags accounted for 4 in 5 carrier bags in Europe

The quickly began making waves across the pond in the States, where major supermarket chains made the switch. By the end of the 1980s, plastic bags were well and truly dominant globally.

In 1965

the original patent was improved upon to add cutout handles

Thulin’s plastic bag

was considered the environmentally friendly alternative

It did away with the need to cut down trees to produce paper carrier bags, and was made from a lightweight material that was water resistant, economical to produce, and able to be used over and over again.

In 1959

the humble plastic carrier bag was invented

A Swedish engineer named Sten Gustaf Thulin used high density polyethylene (HDPE) to invent the plastic bag. HDPE was invented a short time earlier by Karl Ziegler and Erhard Holzcamp in 1953.

When ‘eco-friendly’ backfires:

the cautionary tale of the plastic bag

In 1959, a Swedish engineer named Sten Gustaf Thulin struck upon an invention that would change the world: the humble plastic carrier bag.

The questions we're asking

How can businesses clarify their decision making process about packaging? What does it take to eliminate packaging, or innovate so that its embedded energy and value can be maximised? How can businesses clarify their decision making process about packaging? What does it take to eliminate packaging, or innovate so that its embedded energy and value can be maximised? How can businesses reduce the amount of packaging they are using, and help keep materials in the economy so they don’t become waste or leak into the environment? How can businesses help improve our current systemic approach to packaging? can businesses reduce the amount of packaging they are using, and help keep materials in the economy so they don’t become waste or leak into the environment? How can businesses help improve our current systemic approach to packaging?

US$900 Billion

is generated every year by the global packaging industry

Packaging is inescapable: nearly every product produced and sold comes in packaging, a lot of which is used once and thrown away.

Help customers

be they individuals or businesses

to rethink the way they've understood and dealt with food waste. Businesses approaching the problem of food waste with an attitude of ‘progress over perfection’ are yielding outcomes that are good for business and for the planet.

Thinking about redistribution?

Research food rescue organisations in areas where your business operates

There are businesses solving this problem using tried and tested methods that are well within our reach: we don't need dazzling new innovations to redistribute food and prioritise food for people.

Food waste comes at a big cost

not only financially, but also environmentally and socially

The fact that we are using huge amounts of resources to produce food, and then wasting a third of it, is a wake up sign to those in business: to varying degrees, we are all part of this mind bogglingly inefficient global food system.

Folks are risk averse

because if they mess up your water, people get sick

"They like to see stuff tested... That path through pilot programs and repeated testing is sort of the death march for lots of startup companies. You just can't get to the other side and get to the point of making revenue."

From rice hulls to water filters

"By converting rice hulls to a stable carbon, you can activate it"

"Activated carbon is like a sponge. If you have a Brita filter in your home or pitcher based systems, what's in there is activated carbon, to pull out the chlorine and take out the odour, and a lot of the things that affect the taste of the water. [We added] an additional capability to that basic carbon structure, to be able to pull dissolved metals out."

Glanris means 'clean rice'

From waste to biochar

"We're taking the world's most plentiful ag waste product, which is rice hulls, and converting it into a water filtration media that can help to clean up water around the world. It's a new application of an old technology. A lot of people call it biochar."

Rice hulls

"Glanris don't burn it, we pyrolyse it"

"...which means you cook it in the absence of oxygen. What that does is it doesn't release carbon dioxide and methane; instead you convert it into a stable carbon format.”

20%

of the rice harvest is the hull itself, which has no nutritional value

"Most people burn it in the fields, which produces almost a trillion pounds of greenhouse gas every year."

Rice hulls

are the largest agricultural waste product

Rice is the staple food for more than half the world’s population, but the outer casing of rice grains, called the hull or husk, is inedible and removed during harvesting and processing.

The challenge

is about changing the system

"It takes time, whether it's for a waste management contract to be up for renewal, or for the right people in the business to have the time and bandwidth to really consider whether or not this is the right thing for them to do... and to look at all of the operational and logistical challenges to make it actually work.”

The waste hierarchy

From low-value waste to higher-value product

Goterra is taking food waste that falls into the fifth category - unavoidable waste that would otherwise go to landfill - and moves it up the hierarchy to the third category - producing animal feed; creating a circular economy.

"Insects are nature's cleaners"

An age-old process + modern technology

For Goterra, the innovation lies in marrying up an age-old natural process - using insects to process organic waste - and modern robotic technology that monitors temperature, humidity, and controls when to move waste from the internal receival tanks to the larvae, ensuring a healthy environment for the insects.

At Goterra

we've designed a technology that enables us to decentralize waste management

"If we're able to take the waste management infrastructure to the site where the waste is managed, then we can be far more efficient. ...we can also get more value locally from those wastes through producing food [for animals].”

Electronic food waste digesters

process food waste to extract water

and push this through existing wastewater management systems to be processed - Goterra alternatively creates a high value product off of food waste, without the need for integration into existing waste management logistics networks.

“We're taking low value waste...

that at best will be used to produce soil.

“Particularly with post-consumer food waste, it's got lots of stuff that's not particularly good for composting, like meat and dairy and citrus. And it's got lots of contamination. ...we're able to handle these materials that aren't useful to anybody else and put them to really good use. And that's where we're creating the circular economy.”

Insects

are used to process food waste and create high protein chicken feed

Goterra has created a waste management system that is able to process this post-consumer food waste and create value, converting it to a sustainable protein for chicken feed. They do this by installing a robotically managed unit called ‘MIBS’ - Modular Infrastructure for Biological Services.

Find the really hard to manage waste

and produce a material that can go back into the food supply chain

"...take low grade wastes that can't be used for anything of higher value and valorize them. If we're doing that, we're actually genuinely creating a circular economy."

Unavoidable food waste

is represented at the bottom of the ‘food waste hierarchy’

Unavoidable food waste consists of elements of food production that we would not normally consider edible, such as meat bones, egg shells, or coffee grounds. In these cases, the opportunities for businesses often lie in developing new technologies and systems that are able to process these forms of waste and create value from them.

Solutions to the problem

of food waste don’t necessarily require the latest technologies or innovations

Looking to longstanding human techniques of prolonging the life of food through preservation, Rubies in the Rubble has created a sustainable range of products that add value to ‘out of spec’ produce, meet consumer demand, and create a point of difference in the retail and hospitality space.

Repurposing food products

that would otherwise have gone to waste

and finding new ways to repurpose them and market them to customers, can create a distinctive and profitable business.

Our banana ketchup

"...definitely showcases what we're all about in a really interesting way: taking an ingredient that was a waste product, and really trying to find a demand for it.”

Banana Ketchup

An alternative approach to developing new products

Rubies in the Rubble first considers what types of produce are generating greater amounts of waste, and then looks to develop products that use them in a way that appeals to consumers.