Mutenga Bamboo's goal is to preserve the environment, restore forestry, industrialize rural areas, and mitigate climate change by advocating for the use of bamboo for multiple different purposes. Mutenga Bamboo offers bamboo seedlings and everyday products made from bamboo, such as charcoal, water purifier and toothpicks. Mutenga also designed a syngas pyrolysis plant to generate fuel for electricity generation.

Mutenga Bamboo primarily utilizes bamboo's property of being the fastest growing wood. By planting bamboo – in the rainy season – as an alternative to regular trees in rural communities in Zimbabwe, the company aims to preserve forests and thus halt climate change. Even if bamboo is used as firewood as a substitute for fuel to generate electricity, the bamboo plantation regenerates quickly.














Category:
CONSUMER GOODS I PACKAGING

Post-harvest losses of fruits, vegetables, tubers, and roots are a global problem associated with high greenhouse gas emissions.

Paraexcel Global's patented product Phytorbit is a plant-based edible coating for fruits and vegetables. It is sold to farmers as a powder, that is diluted with water and then sprayed on fruits and vegetables directly after harvesting. The products can also be dipped into the solution.

Phytorbit creates an invisible layer of coating that serves as a barrier, reducing the gaseous exchange between the coated product and the atmosphere, thereby reducing weight loss. One gram of powder is diluted in one liter of water and costs about 2,500 to 3,000 Naira (about 6 Euro). This solution of one gram can coat 200 kilograms of tomatoes.

The powder is made of organic waste such as watermelon rind, hibiscus leaves, orange peel, seeds, and roots, that the startup gets as waste from food markets. Through an ozone-hydroxyl-cleaning- and sterilization-process germs, pesticides, and other impurities are removed. The product contains no chemicals like paraffin as found in wax.

An analysis by the Department of Pharmacognosy and Herbal Medicine at Bayero University in Kano, Nigeria showed that Phytorbit is safe for human consumption, extends the shelf life of some fresh agricultural products and inhibits the growth of microorganisms.

Category:
PRODUCTS FROM PLANT SUBSTANCES

In the EU, only 33% of plastics is recycled, the rest goes to landfills or is incinerated.

Swiss company Plastogaz uses a catalytic hydrocracking process to convert multilayer packaging back into its original components. The process allows the conversion of plastic into new polymers without any loss of quality.

Plastogaz is a technology company founded in 2020 that focuses on the development of new processes for the circular economy.



Category:
RECYCLING PLASTIC

There is a growing awareness in society that plastic is a threat to nature. Yet there is little talk about the synthetic fabric waste of the clothing industry, although both are basically the same.

Poliverde wants to reduce this waste. About 25% of nylon is usually thrown away during the clothing production process. Poliverde offers clothing companies a paid service of collecting synthetic fabric scraps. These scraps are turned into a raw material: nylon in the form of small pellets.

Poliverde has developed a technology to eco-friendly recycle polyamide (= nylon) fabric scraps of type nylon 6 and nylon 66. After the fabric is separated from residues, it is heated and boiled. The boiling process differs slightly for nylon 6 and nylon 66. In both cases two layers emerge in the liquid – one that consists of nylon and one that consists of other chemicals like elastane / spandex. After the chemicals are separated, an extruder is used to create the nylon pellets. These are sold and can be used to make yarns and fabrics again or can be used in the engineering and plastics industries, in 3D printers for example. Since solar energy is used to heat the chemicals, the process is eco-friendly. In Brazil nylon is currently quite expensive.


Category:
TEXTILES I RECYCLING PLASTIC

PV modules contain raw materials which are either strategic and critical such as highly pure silicon, or expensive such as silver and copper. Proper recycling of end-of-life PV modules through high value raw material revalorization not only reduces industrial waste, but also offers a rich source of highly pure raw materials. Following the large-scale deployment of solar energy in Europe starting from last century, there are huge market and technology opportunities to establish a circular economy in the PV industry.

Rosi is engaged in developing and industrializing its proprietary technologies for high-value recycling of end-of-life PV modules. Within the framework of Soren (formerly PV-cycle France) tender call in 2021, Rosi has kicked off the construction of industrial line dedicated to silicon, silver and copper revalorization in France. This site, so-called Centre d'Excellence de Grenoble, is scheduled to kick off its operation by the end of 2022. Rosi wants to bring its technologies and innovations to the largest PV market in Europe – Germany.


Category:
RECYCLING SOLAR MODULES

Tires are not efficiently disposed of and recycled in Latin America.

Since 2018, the Ecuadorian startup Seginus performs the management of used car tires in Ecuador being a reference in several Latin American countries, as well as for other sectors, such as oils and batteries. It represents the first non-profit collective system that articulates the recycling chain of scrap tires and works to ensure that the tire cycle does not end by transforming tires into energy, flooring and materials for craftsmen, among other things. The collective management model developed integrates all the actors of the value chain: importers, producers, managers, traders, consumers, and public institutions, in total more than 2,500 points at national level.

Seginus has developed a web platform that connects all the actors and registers the transactions of all the actors of the value chain from the one who requests the collection to the treatment of the tires. An algorithm has been created to collect and optimize the pickup of tires and their transportation to the treatment supplier where they can be disposed appropriately.

The recovery of tires at the end of their useful life is key to the sustainability of Seginus' business platform. The startup, therefore, is interested in existing initiatives to promote ecological roads made with rubber from used car tires as well as tire destruction systems to obtain raw materials that can be reused in the production of new tires.


Category:
PLATFORM I SOFTWARE

Conventional tiles are made with new resources. Their extraction always leads to environmental degradation and pollution. At the same time, all over the world, huge amounts of construction debris are dumped in landfills.

SHARDS embodies the idea of urban mining and makes tiles from debris. All the raw materials the company uses are recycled – glass and different kinds of bricks and roof tiles – are pulverized, then shaped and heated in an electric kiln, that is using green energy. No artificial colouring is added during the production process.


Category:
BUILDING MATERIALS

The rise in e-commerce leads to an increasing demand of single use padded envelopes made from plastic and paper composites. These envelopes are often disposed in residual or paper waste, prohibiting efficient resource recycling.

Developed by two environment engineers, Transfairbag replaces this type of bubble mailer with a product that is only made of paper and thus can be disposed with other paper waste. The product is designed to be sustainable, elastic, size flexible and affordable. Transfairbag is also very light; alternatives weight more by a factor of three.

The envelopes consist of two layers of kraft paper and resistant cushioning material which is made from specially prepared paper fibres to maintain the properties of elastic and size-flexible padding. The paper used to produce the envelopes solely is recycled.


Category:
CONSUMER GOODS I PACKAGING

Sand as a resource is becoming increasingly scarce, while at the same time the demand for sand is increasing. Additionally, the amount of plastic waste is about 226,5 kg per person per year.

Zelij Invent has developed an eco-friendly construction product, the hollow block, which is made of 50% plastic waste. The granulated plastic is mixed with 38% recycled glass. The rest is made up of sand, cement, and a special glue. The blocks can be stacked similar to Lego-blocks and are fixed by a mortar based of an own formula.

Hollow blocks can be recycled in their shape or re-grinded to create new blocks. They can be used like concrete blocks and are harder and more durable than concrete blocks. Additionally, no CO2 emissions are released during the production process, because after molding, the blocks only need to dry instead of being burned.



Category:
RECYCLING PLASTICS I BUILDING MATERIALS