Moving from plastics to biomaterials
Plastic is versatile and cheap to make. Worldwide, the UN estimates, we produce about 400 million tonnes of plastic waste every year — and so far, less than 10 percent of that has been recycled.
As an alternative, companies are turning to biomaterials, which break down when disposed of properly. But to be a true replacement, biomaterials need to do the same thing plastics can.
Kritika Tyagi, co-founder of the biomaterials company erthos®, understands this. She met her co-founder, Nuha Siddiqui, while studying at the University of Toronto in the late 2010s. They combined their skills to build their company: Tyagi — research, and Siddiqui — business.
Answering the call to help industry innovate — today
Clients come to them with product applications they want replaced and the erthos® team develops a formula with industry-tested and erthos®-patented ingredients, builds the biomaterial and helps the company test the products at scale. They have worked on products like cosmetics containers, and caps for Budweiser kegs, among others.
From an infrastructure perspective, a funding perspective, a talent pool perspective — there are so many opportunities in Canada.
A potato-based solution conceived in a lab
In the early days of erthos®, Tyagi and Siddiqui were looking to swap petroleum-based packing peanuts for something that could be made with potato byproducts. To test their formulas, they booked time at the CFI-funded Lambton Manufacturing Innovation Centre (LMIC) at Lambton College in Sarnia, Ont. Under the supervision of the lab’s researchers, and working with the students there, they tested the potato-based biomaterial in the lab’s plastic-making equipment to see if it could create equivalent material. It could. Building on that success, erthos® now regularly helps clients move away from plastics without having to retool their factories, saving them money.
