As the famous saying goes, what goes around, comes around, right? While this is true for almost every aspect of life, sadly, it’s also a reality when it comes to pollution in our skies and seas. With microplastics now a global phenomenon that have corrupted the planet’s oceans, it has also become a worldwide problem.
Thankfully, one Paris-based startup company called Calyxia has recently announced that they will put $17 million into making a difference. The plan is to create a variety of products to help big producers cut out their use of microplastics in their produce that create this added pollution to the earth.
Things such as biodegradable microplastic capsules in items such as agricultural chemicals and laundry detergent, as well as special lubricants that stop plastic from disintegrating into microplastics, Calyxia could help save these corporations and consumers millions of dollars in their usual costs, as well as the heightened taxes they will face once the European Union ban on microplastics is set in place by the year 2022.
Calyxia began in part by Jamie Walters, whose father was a second-generation UK coal miner. He shares that after seeing the coal mine close down, regardless of how its closure was beneficial to physical health of both people and the planet, he also saw that it had a devastating impact on the economy and those that worked in the mines.
He told Fast Company, “So living that experience, I’ve always wanted to rebuild industries because I believe they can rebuild communities that are safe, that are sustainable and could advance society, and that are also economically viable.”
It’s Walters hope to reform particular companies such as those that make the microplastic capsules in laundry detergent that release the scent into your clothes during a wash. These capsules are what go through the water treatment plants and eventually make their way out of the drainage and into the planet’s aquatic ecosystems, then oftentimes into the water and food people consume.
In addition, many times these capsules also contain agricultural herbicide products as well. What these capsules do is release their products very slowly, which allows a smaller requirement of the herbicide use. But what this does is all the miniscule microplastics to fall down into the soil, contaminating it in the process.
What Calyxia hopes to offer are biodegradable microplastic capsules for products just like the ones mentioned above, which can basically degrade into the air rather than in water and land.
Another one of their products is a lubricant that is meant to coat the most commonly used plastics, which is the polyethylene plastic sheeting used to press-wrap products. The lubricant will stop the plastic from breaking apart in the environment, therefore hindering it from releasing the harmful microplastics that have managed to contaminate and pollute the whole globe.
The firm is quite ready to being producing hundreds of tons of their products with the hopes to soon begin working with these huge corporations before the ban against microplastics is put in place in 2022. Then after that, they plan to increase their production to thousands of tons in order to help companies better deal with the policy changes that the microplastics ban is sure to bring.
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