Samsara Eco breaks down plastic pollution with its enzyme technology

Samsara Eco has developed an infinite plastic recycling technology by using synthetically engineered enzymes, a new way to contribute to the circular economy.

With this new technology, it means there is no need to create plastic from fossil fuels, they can use waste as a feedstock to create virgin quality plastic.

Vanessa Vongsouthi, protein engineering lead and research founder at Samsara Eco told Digital Nation how they are producing a new way to contribute to the circular economy.

“A lot of existing technology even outside of mechanical recycling like incineration or pyrolysis are technologies that are giving plastic, one more go around or lifetime as energy or fuel,” she explained.  

“If we are using enzymes to go all the way down to those chemical building blocks that can be used to make brand new plastic again, that's a truly circular process.”

There have been 9 billion tonnes of plastic created globally, and 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced annually but only 9 percent of that plastic is able to be recycled.

Vongsouthi said these statistics highlight an issue with conventional recycling technology.

“Most recycling at the moment, is mechanical recycling. That is very limited by its requirements for a clean, usually clear stream of plastic, even then, most of it is packaging,” she said.

“We have all this other plastic out there that's contaminated or maybe it's a fibre from the textiles industry or it's a mixed plastic, that has nowhere to go except for landfill or the environment.”

Vongsouthi explained how Samsara Eco’s technology differs from the melting and reforming process of traditional recycling.

“Of the 9 percent of plastic that eventually makes it to a mechanical recycling facility, if the waste stream is uncontaminated and it's clear, that plastic gets melted and reformed to make new plastic products again,” she said,

“But what happens with each cycle of that process is the plastic loses some of its quality and structural integrity. Over each cycle, you have to start spiking it with virgin material to maintain that usability. Otherwise, it ends up eventually in landfill or the environment as well.”

Vongsouthi said Samsara Eco’s enzymes break plastic down all the way to the chemical building blocks that the plastics are made up of.

“We can then take these chemical building blocks and use them to make virgin quality plastic again with no compromise to the quality over an infinite number of cycles, which is where the term infinite plastic recycling comes from,” she said.

Samsara Eco has plans to go global, according to Vongsouthi.

“Our 2030 vision is that Samsara Eco is recycling 1.5 million tonnes of plastic per year. With that, we have to take the necessary steps to take our technology from lab to our R&D line to our first commercial facility then use that as a blueprint for future facilities,” she said.

While there is a challenge of scaling technology, Vongsouthi said in addition to that, they are on the journey to find the right partners to facilitate their expansion as well.

"Then there's the broader challenge of policy and regulation that will be conducive to advanced recycling technology, succeeding in cleaning up the plastic pollution problem," she ended.