CHF 100'000 to support DePoly's PET recycling

Plastic waste, landfill pollution and reliance on oil are major issues of our modern society, and current PET recycling technologies often face the challenge of mixed plastic types in the waste. With a recycling process that can selectively treat PET plastic in the presence of other plastics, DePoly aims to close the loop on PET production by recycling post-consumer PET plastic waste. The resulting chemical products might then directly be used to make 100% recycled PET resins.

The process developed by DePoly works with all PET plastics including mixed colour, multi-layer and polyester fibres, at room temperature without any additional heat or pressure, and with sustainable and environmentally friendly chemicals only. According to the start-up, every ton of plastic being recycled enables to save an amount of energy equivalent to 4 European households’ annual electricity consumption, 18 barrels of burnt oil or 10 passengers flying from London to New York.

Founded in February 2020 by Samantha Anderson, Christopher Ireland and Bardiya Valizadeh, DePoly has already received numerous supports, including VentureKick, Climate-Kic, the EPFL, Venture and CleanTechAlps. The cleantech start-up is currently conducting a seed fundraising round to build a larger demo plant.

“The FIT loan will fund the 10 kg plant that we will be using as a footprint for the future demo-plant and help cover the salary for the staff needed to run the plan”, explains Samantha Anderson, CEO and founder of DePoly. With the development of these plants, the DePoly team targets the markets of PET resin producers, plastic recyclers and chemical industries.

(Press release / ES)
Picture: Christopher Ireland, Samantha Anderson and Bardiya Valizadeh