Healthcare is full of disposable plastic. Over 2,800 tons of plastic packaging and products are thrown away every day in medical facilities in the US.
Few people know this better than Eddie Yu. Early in the pandemic, Yu founded a company that made disposable masks. One day, his nie was with him while sorting recycles, and she asked him if his mask could also be recycled.
“I actually said that I can’t recycle masks,” he told TechCrunch. “She interrupted me and said, ‘Oh, then you make a lot of garbage every day.’ ”
The girl’s words stick to Yu and after selling a mask company in 2021 he tried to compensate.
To tame Healthcare’s single-use plastic problem, Yu’s new company Ökosix has developed a new bio-based biodegradable polymer. Ökosix is part of the startup battlefield and will be announced later this month in TechCrunch confusion in San Francisco.
Ökosix blends a variety of compounds including cellulose, chitosan, waxes, and proprietary materials derived from shellfish. The result is cheaper than polyratic acid (PLA), a widely used biodegradable plastic that has the functionality “just or even better than PLA.”
Among plastics, the term “biodegradable” is often misused, Yu said. Some require very specific conditions to decompose, while others simply fall into microplastic or nanoplasty.
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“We have an international accreditation to prove that the material is completely gone in six months,” Yu said.
Although Ökosix starts with face masks, it plans to make surgical gowns, diapers and hygienic napkins, Yu said. “We want to use safe materials to replace fossil plastic with disposable products.”
Although the company has not yet performed a formal lifecycle analysis, Yu said Ökosix’s materials should have a carbon footprint 90% lower than that of polypropylene, a widely used single-use plastic.
Ökosix sells the material to third parties and turns it into a variety of products. “At this point, our business model is like Gore-Tex,” Yu said. “We don’t make finished products, but we create layers, we make raw materials and work with companies like 3M,” he added that branding could become an important part of the business, just like Gore-Tex.
The startup raised $2.3 million, including investments from founders and other angel investors.
Learn more from Ökosix and dozens of other startups, take part in valuable workshops and create lasting connections in this year’s chaos, and take place in San Francisco from October 27th to 29th.
