Chip[s] Board Ltd
Plastic pollution has hit a catastrophic high, with only a staggeringly 15% making it to recycling facilities. From buttons to bookcases, spectacles to school chairs and car doors to countertops, there’s a huge range of durable items that need to be brought into a circular economy through the use of sustainable alternatives to petroleum plastics, offering multiple end of life scenarios.
Our vision is to create a true circular economy bioplastic, using waste as a feed source. We’ve developed a process to transform abundant food waste into Parblex™, a durable bioplastic.
- Listing ID: 1108
- Contact: Rowan Minkley
- What are your aspirations and plans for the future?: We are in the process of up-scaling Parblex production working with UK RTO partners, with our goal to establish a production facility outputting 3-6T per month by Q3/4 2020. Alongside this we are about to begin R&D into developing bioplasticisers from agri-food waste for use in the fashion industry – allowing access to the fastenings, eyewear and textiles industries. Our other key limitation is colour – currently pure Parblex is translucent. Currently we compound this with natural fibres – such as olive stone, coffee grounds and wood flour – this results in rich mahogany browns, sandy olives and other natural hues, but none of the colours we have grown accustom to from plastics. Our latest goal is to develop pigments from agrifood waste, such as avocado stones, for use in Parblex.
- What types of projects are you interested in working on through Future Fashion Factory?: Our ideal project would be developing natural, heat stable pigments from agri-food waste for use in our bioplastic. Currently pigments are made using minerals or petrochemicals which aren’t biodegradable. Natural dyes exist but aren’t heat stable so degrade and turn brown when used in plastics – we want to solve this issue. Recommendation for academics at partner universities who are conducting research in this area would be greatly appreciated. A further project we would like to explore is the development of yarn and textiles from Parblex.
