Australian startup Samsara to commercialize its enzyme recycling

An Australian startup company plans to commercialize an infinite plastics recycling process that uses enzymes to break down plastics into their original monomers.

Late in 2022, the company, Samsara Eco Pty. Ltd., raised A$54 million (US$37 million) from venture capital providers and Breakthrough Victoria, which manages a A$2 billion (US$1.4 billion) investment fund set up by the Victorian Government to encourage innovation in that state.

Jestin George, head of strategy for Samsara, told Plastics News the company would build its first commercial-scale factory in Victoria at a location yet to be decided. It will open in 2024.

She said Samsara currently operates a "commercial innovation hub" in Jerrabomberra, which is close to the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.

She said the hub is a temporary facility where Samsara can demonstrate its ability to translate the technology from the laboratory to commercial-scale production.

George said Samsara was launched by businessman Paul Riley, who had experience in venture capital and private equity business building, in late 2021 after he read an article about two ANU chemistry doctorate students who had developed plastic-degrading enzymes. Both are now listed as team members on Samsara's website.

Samsara's initial backers were ANU, Main Sequence — a venture capital fund founded by CSIRO, a federal government-backed research organization, to help commercialize research projects — and the giant Sydney-based supermarket retailer Woolworths Group Ltd.

"ANU released the intellectual property and research to Samsara Eco because [the university] wanted to support commercialization without squabbling over the rights," George said.

Samsara leases laboratories at ANU to continue the research and is designing its A$80 million (US$55 million) factory. An ANU news release said the factory is expected to recycle 20,000 tons of plastic a year from 2024.

George said Samsara expects to be profitable next year once the Victorian factory opens.

Samsara has global ambitions. George said the company wants to open factories in Europe by 2025, then expand into North America. "Strong" legislation in Europe made it "attractive to go there first." The corporate goal is to recycle 1.5 million tons of plastic by 2030.

George said the enzymes' ability to break plastic down to its original monomers means products made from Samsara-developed plastic can be endlessly recycled because the quality does not degrade over time, hence the term "infinite recycling."

"We're looking at partners that are collecting plastic that we can buy at the right price," she said. Feedstock can be mixed, multilayered and does not require washing before the process starts.

George said the naturally occurring enzymes attack complex polymers and revert them back to their original chemical building blocks, monomers, to be used to make new, virgin-grade plastics.

"Samsara's novel recycling process is carbon-neutral and environmentally friendly and removes the need to rely on fossil fuels to create plastics."

Samsara will initially focus on PET and polyester but its scientists are validating enzymes that can degrade a wide range of resins.

Woolworths, as a founding partner, has committed to turn the first 5,000 tons of recycled Samsara plastic into packaging for its own-brand products. The retailer expects to have the new packaging on shelves within the next two years.

George said using natural enzymes to depolymerize plastic was developed in Japan in 2016 and scientists globally then worked on organisms that can be engineered to break down plastics. The time frames required were a problem, but the Samsara depolymerization process takes from 10 minutes to "a few hours," depending on the resin type.

"That's a huge aspect of why we can sell at the same price as traditional recycled plastic," she said.

ANU Vice Chancellor Brian Schmidt, in an ANU news release, said Samara is an example of research-powered innovation: "It will take a real team effort to turn the tide on plastic pollution, and that's exactly what we're seeing with Samara and its investors."

Riley said: "Unlike other alternative recycling practices, our process is economical, with a low carbon footprint and allows for the effective recycling of challenging plastics including colored, multilayered or mixed plastics and textiles. With our technology, you never need to produce plastic from fossil fuels again."

He said Samsara's recycled plastic "looks and performs like the original, minus the environmental price tag."

In April 2022, Samsara won a prize from Australia's Banksia National Sustainability Awards for its "revolutionary" process of "infinite recycling."

Schmidt said at the time: "Our clever chemists have not only found a way to help break down plastics to their fundamental building blocks, monomers, which are then used to create new plastics, but are now using their incredible discovery to turn the tide on the relentless wave of plastic pollution our planet is drowning under."

In Hinduism and Buddhism, samsara is the cycle of death and rebirth.