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Polymateria

Type	Private limited company
Headquarters	I-HUB, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
Products	Biotransformation formulation; Masterbatch
Key people	Niall Dunne (CEO) Dr Christopher Wallis (VP, Innovations) Marc Bolland (Chairman) Frédéric de Mévius (Board) Simon Susman (Board) Jonathan Sieff (Founder) Lee Davy-Martin (Founder)
Staff	30 (2020)
Website	Https://www.polymateria.com

Polymateria logo

Polymateria

Polymateria Ltd is a British privately-owned technology company which develops biodegradable and compostable solutions to tackle plastic pollution. Its proprietary formulation called Biotransformation is time-controlled to break down commonly-littered forms of plastic such as polyethylene and polypropylene should they escape from recycling streams, without creating microplastics.

In 2020, Polymateria became the first company in the world to fully biodegrade the most commonly-littered forms of plastic packaging in less than a year in real-world conditions without creating microplastics.

History

Polymateria was founded in 2015 by Jonathan Sieff and Lee Davy-Martin in joint development with Imperial College London and is based at the I-HUB in White City Campus. Niall Dunne, former Chief Sustainability Officer of BT Group, is CEO of the company.

In October 2019, Polymateria announced a partnership with specialty chemical company Clariant (now Avient) to bring its Biotransformation technology to market in South East Asia. A subsequent partnership agreement with Clariant announced in January 2020 includes a deal with the Indian Government to bring Biotransformation to India.

In July 2020, Polymateria announced a funding round of £15 million by Planet First Partners (PFP), a long-term impact investment platform led by former Verlinvest founder and CEO Frédéric de Mévius of the De Mévius family behind Anheuser-Busch InBev. The announcement also included expansion of Polymateria’s board to include Frédéric de Mévius and Simon Susman, former CEO and Chairman of Woolworths Holdings and Chairman of Virgin Active Holdings. Former Marks & Spencer CEO Marc Bolland joined as Chairman.

In October 2020, Polymateria sponsored the first standard to measure the biodegradability of polyolefins. The standard, PAS 9017, was developed by a steering group of experts in the field of plastics including Waste and Resource Action Programme (WRAP); Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera); Polymateria; Anglia Ruskin University; Imperial College London; Avient (previously Clariant); Impact Solutions; Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). It was subject to a public consultation process, where other interested parties submitted comments. It published with consensus of the steering group.

Biotransformation

Biotransformation Polymateria’s Biotransformation technology is a bespoke approach to redesigning plastic packaging at point of manufacture. It works with pure materials capable of full and safe return to nature without damaging the waste hierarchy of reduce, reuse and recycle.

The technology can be time-controlled to Biotransform the hard crystalline and amorphous structure into a wax-like material through multiple chemical reactions achieving carbon-carbon bond scission, ensuring no microplastics. Its proprietary use of ‘synthetic’ prebiotic attracts microbes, funghi and bacteria to fully consume the wax-like material in real-world mesophilic conditions, producing biomass and leaving behind no ecotoxicity issues or microplastics.

In July 2020, Polymateria announced that on a range of the most-littered forms of packaging – polyethylene and polypropylene – independent third-party laboratory testing achieved 100% biodegradation on a rigid plastic container in 336 days and film material in 226 days. This was done in real-world mesophilic conditions. The process needed no industrial composting facilities and left no microplastics behind, nor did it cause any environmental harm in the process.

Biotransformation is fully compatible with the circular economy and the three-Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) and incorporates a fourth R of Redesign. The technology is proven at independent labs to be fully recyclable per Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) and Plastic Recyclers Europe (PRE) guidelines and has been proven at independent labs to have no impact on recycling streams at scale.

Biotransformation works with a wide range of plastic types including:

• Injection moulded or thermoformed PP: as found in clear plastic containers from a supermarket delicatessen.
• Injection moulded PP or LDPE: the lids of plastic bottles, such as for soft drinks or cleaning products, are often made of this material.
• Mono and multi-layer PP, LLDPE, LDPE: thin plastic bags, the nets in which fruit is packaged and ready-meal wrappings are often made of this.
• Mono and multi-layer BOPP: candy wrappers, cigarette film, bakery products and flower sleeves.
• Non-woven PP: facemasks, tea bags and wipes.

See Also

• Circular economy • Biodegradation • Microplastics