We’ve all been told to recycle, but most plastic still ends up in landfills or floating in our oceans. That’s why Samsara Eco is turning to enzymes – specialized proteins that can selectively eat through plastic waste and make it endlessly recyclable.
Plastic contributes to significant pollution, with about one-third never reaching proper collection systems. Its production, use, and disposal also generates approximately 1.8 billion tons of carbon emissions annually. If left unchecked, plastics are projected to account for 15% of the global carbon budget by 2050 and will outweigh fish in our oceans.
But recycling plastic isn’t easy – it’s built to last, with chemistry that resists every attempt to recycle. It’s also expensive to collect and sort, as there are thousands of different types of plastics that cannot be simply melted down together.
This results in a pitifully low 9% of plastic waste being recycled, while the rest ends up in landfills or in nature. Still, every piece of properly recycled plastic helps reduce pollution, eases the burden on landfills, and supports the shift toward better waste systems.
When not properly recycled, plastic waste wreaks havoc throughout our ecosystems. Scientists found that crabs, for example, struggle to eat and grow when they swallow tiny plastic fibers. They’ve also shown that tiny freshwater creatures called zooplankton die off after plastic exposure. Zooplankton help support phytoplankton, which produce the majority of Earth's oxygen.
While traditional recycling falls short, new solutions are finally breaking through these barriers.
Samsara Eco has created a platform technology that discovers and develops enzymes, specialized proteins, capable of breaking down any type of plastic and producing outputs with the same quality as virgin plastic.
The company collects and prepares plastic waste through cold washing, with hard plastics chipped and textiles like polyester shredded. This avoids the high emissions of traditional hot washing methods. Samsara Eco’s unique enzymes then break the plastic down at the molecular level, reversing polymers back into their original monomers through a process called depolymerization.
Once the plastic is reverted to its basic building blocks, any additives such as colourants are removed, leaving pure monomers ready for reuse. Unlike conventional recycling, which struggles with mixed or coloured plastics and often results in lower-quality output, this method produces high-quality monomers suitable for making brand new plastics, including food-grade packaging.
Throughout the process, chemicals, water, and energy are recovered and reused, enabling an infinite recycling loop with minimal environmental impact and no harmful byproducts. The result is a circular solution for plastics, breaking dependence on fossil fuels while delivering materials with the same quality as virgin plastics.
Lululemon partnered with Samsara Eco to produce the world’s first enzymatically recycled nylon 6,6 thread and garment. Nylon is one of the most widely used plastic fibers manufactured in the US. It is ubiquitous in many bags, swimsuits, activewear, and jackets for its affordability, water-repelling properties, durability, and versatility. A major factor in nylon’s cheap production is its use of petroleum-based chemical feedstocks. Lululemon uses nylon 6, 6 to create many of its bestselling products, such as the Align and Wunder Train leggings.
Together with Samsara Eco, Lululemon is creating textile-to-textile recycling, harnessing waste to remake recycled nylon and polyester, and eliminating the need for virgin, petroleum-based, plastic materials.
Lululemon saw so much potential in Samsara Eco’s technology that they invested in the Company’s $100M Series A. The Company also caught the attention of notable institutional investors, including Temasek (Singapore's $287B sovereign wealth fund), DCVC, Hitachi Ventures, Main Sequence Ventures, and Wollemi.
Plastic waste has met its match. Samsara Eco transforms trash into treasure, paving the way for a truly circular future. With Samsara Eco, plastic waste isn’t the end of the line – it’s the start of infinite new life. Clean, circular, and built for what’s next.
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