As Plastic Piles Up, So Does Funding To Startups Working On Alternatives

People are using and discarding too much plastic. It’s terrible for the environment, contributes to global warming and can contain substances dangerous for our own health.

This isn’t new information. Consumers are already pretty aware about the awfulness of plastic and guilty about how much we consume. We spend billions on things like paper straws and fancy reusable water bottles.

And yet, plastic remains omnipresent, from berry cartons to bottle caps to shopping bags. In tandem, global plastic waste is on track to almost triple by 2060 from 2019 levels.

Plastic overconsumption isn’t a problem startups are likely to solve single-handedly. However, they have raised considerable funding over the years to develop more environmentally friendly substitutes, better manage waste and create useful products from recycled materials.

Investment continues to flow to the space, too. This past year, startups addressing the global plastic problem in some form have raised more than $300 million in fresh funding, per Crunchbase data.

The startups saving us from plastic and plastic waste

For a sense of where the money is going, we aggregated a list of 31 companies that have raised financing in the last 12 months.

It’s a varied assortment, spanning everything from garbage-derived thermoplastics to seaweed packaging to recycled plastic water bottles.

In this broad mix, however, three themes stood out: greener consumer products, alternative materials and better management of plastic waste. Below, we take a look at sample companies and overall funding for each of these areas.

Greener consumer products

We’ll start with consumer products. Although this isn’t the largest category funding-wise, it’s especially interesting to peruse as it delivers items we might actually be able to buy.

Using Crunchbase data, we winnowed a sample set of nine companies funded in the past year that generally fit in this (compostable) bucket.

Among them, startups working on beverage containers were the biggest funding recipients.

The top fundraiser is Irvine, California-based ZenWTR, which has picked up more than $48 million in funding to date and counts football star Travis Kelce as a lead investor. The company sells mineral- and electrolyte-infused water packaged in bottles made by recycling plastic that was at a high risk of ending up in the ocean.

Other drink-focused funded startups include France’s GreenBig, which puts kiosks in supermarkets for recycling plastic bottles, and New York-based Earth Brands, which makes clear disposable cups from compostable materials.

Textiles are another significant focus area. In this category are Los Angeles-based Ambercycle, which makes a new branded textile material from polyester waste, and Paris-based Circle Sportswear, which makes sportswear from recycled materials.

Better ways to handle plastic waste

Other startups are focusing on ways to better collect, process and potentially find ways to reuse the huge quantities of plastic waste we keep piling up.

Below, we put together a collection of 13 companies innovating along these lines.

The most heavily funded, UBQ Materials, straddles both the waste and alternative materials categories. The Tel Aviv-based company makes a plastic substitute created from unrecyclable household waste, including organics such as banana peels and pizza boxes, together with baby diapers and mixed plastics. It’s raised $240 million in known funding to date.

Other standout startups are working on chemical processes to transform plastic and textile waste into reusable materials. This camp includes French startup Carbios, focused on enzymatic recycling of plastic and textiles, and Switzerland-based DePoly, which turns waste plastics into reusable raw materials. Another, London-based Epoch Biodesign, says it is working on an enzymatic process to “transform plastic waste into everyday chemicals.”

Alternative materials

Finding better ways to collect and reuse the plastic we already have is certainly a worthwhile endeavor. However, it’d also be nice to see more new materials that can provide some of the same appealing qualities of plastic without the environmental downside.

On this front, we culled nine companies from our main list that are innovating around this theme.

Hamburg-based Traceless Materials is an investor favorite in this area. It’s raised more than $42 million to date to scale up its “plant based, plastic-free and home compostable” biomaterials made from leftovers of agriculture food production.

Another one to watch is Cambridge, U.K.-based Xampla, which is working on biodegradable replacements for single-use plastics and microplastics. To this end, it’s raised more than $25 million to date.

Given all the landfill waste attributable to disposable diapers, Tel Aviv-based Polygreen also has an intriguing proposition. It’s working on sustainable alternatives to petroleum-based products that possess super-absorbent qualities popular in hygiene products like diapers as well as other applications.

Not just token gestures

Looking at recently funded companies taking on plastic waste and overuse, one unifying theme is that these are technologies and processes that could potentially have a major impact in alleviating the problems they are tackling.

I say this because, as a plastic-overusing consumer, it’s clear that many of the steps we currently take to assuage our associated guilt are performatory or require tradeoffs in quality. The example that comes immediately to mind here is the paper straw.

True, we’ve also seen strides from companies that scaled products now widely available, like compostable cutlery and recyclable flip flops. But given how much new plastic we continue to bring into our lives, it’s clear there’s still a great need for more and better alternatives.