Two guys, a blender and a toaster oven.That’s the setting in which Hanson Wong and Mohesan Sreekuladevan, the founders of Plastic Flux, found themselves in Wong’s parents’ backyard, trying to figure out how to break plastic packaging apart so they could reconstitute it for another use.Wong says the aim was to prove they could recycle plastic and then apply for grants. But with only industrial machinery available, the pair had to improvise.“It’s hard for you to provide a proof of concept if you don’t really have the machinery to create it,” says Wong. “So it’s a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg situation. So we had to get very creative.”Their experiment proved successful.Plastic Flux now collects used packaging, breaks it down and uses the heat from a sheet press to consolidate the recycled plastic into slabs that can be used to create household items.Wong says the idea for the company arrived during the pandemic like the takeout containers that were being used for lunch at his fintech startup, while restaurants were closed to eat-in diners.“After lunches, there’d be a huge pile of takeout containers,” says Wong. “And we thought, there has to be a better use for this than having it end up in the landfill.”Many of the containers were made of black plastic, which can’t be recycled because the pigment blocks optical sorters in recycling plants from identifying the type of plastic the container is made of. “We ended up going down a different rabbit hole trying to find ways to prevent the plastic from ending up in the landfill,” says Wong.Both men have a background in science, not business. Research led them to Precious Plastic, a not-for-profit organization founded by Dave Hakkens in 2013 in the Netherlands.Hakkens’ goal is to provide people with the tools and know-how that he had begun using to recycle plastic. His methods have included making instructional videos and open-source designs for low-cost machinery so recycling can be done locally, including areas in the developing world.Wong and Sreekuladevan were able to cobble together some startup money by entering pitch competitions, including a successful pitch at a competition for former students of St. Michael’s College School, of which Wong is an alumnus. He says they also got a small grant from Canada Starts, an organization created by industry to support entrepreneurs.Perhaps the biggest physical contribution, however, came from the research department of George Brown College, which built the sheet press — modifying a design from Precious Plastic — that Plastic Flux is now using to meld together the bits of recycled plastic. George Brown runs about 100 projects a year with partners from a wide range of industrial sectors, applying for federal and provincial funding to help develop products and equipment, as well as do research in areas such as social innovation, built environments and interactive design.In 2021-22, the school received $4.8 million in funding, bringing its historical total to $90 million since 2007. The equipment it built for Wong and Sreekuladevan belongs to Plastic Flux.“The intellectual property that we generate, everything belongs to the industry partner,” says John-Allan Ellingson, a principal investigator at George Brown who worked with the company. “All the work we do, physical as well as the design, that is the property of the industry partners. So it’s their equipment.”Plastic Flux currently sells coasters, but it is working on designs for several types of tables. The materials come from the company’s two collection sites, where the public can drop off clean plastic containers made of high density polyethylene — identified with the number 2, in the triangle on the container’s bottom — or number 5, which is polypropylene. The collection sites are at the Green Jar store on St. Clair Avenue W. and the 6×8 Market in Kensington.Wong says that people often question the price of the plastic coasters ($40 for four, $60 for six) that he sells at the Kensington Market site because consumers assume the product is virgin plastic, which is much less expensive than recycled plastic, and people also think the items are mass-produced.“We have been getting feedback where people are saying, ‘Hey, the prices are too high.’ Or ‘it looks like virgin plastic,’” says Wong. “But it’s not. We do need to do a little bit more brainstorming and experimenting in terms of how we tell our story.“Whenever we collect plastic, we’re hand sorting it, which takes a lot of time,” he says, explaining the price, which is also affected by the time it takes to clean the plastic and shred it into flakes. “But we’re guaranteeing that the material is not going to end up landfill.”Plastic Flux is working on a second project with George Brown, building a machine that will be used to recycle flimsy plastic flower pots into more stable containers.Ellingson says the recycling project by Plastic Flux addressees “what the everyman” can do to help fix a glaring problem: less than 10 per cent of plastic collected in Canada gets recycled.“I think it’s great that two entrepreneurs would take it upon themselves to tackle this,” says Ellingson. “And they spent a lot of time and effort to work on something that has a definite ecological benefit.”
Two guys, a blender and a toaster oven.
That’s the setting in which Hanson Wong and Mohesan Sreekuladevan, the founders of Plastic Flux, found themselves in Wong’s parents’ backyard, trying to figure out how to break plastic packaging apart so they could reconstitute it for another use.
Wong says the aim was to prove they could recycle plastic and then apply for grants. But with only industrial machinery available, the pair had to improvise.
“It’s hard for you to provide a proof of concept if you don’t really have the machinery to create it,” says Wong. “So it’s a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg situation. So we had to get very creative.”
Their experiment proved successful.
Plastic Flux now collects used packaging, breaks it down and uses the heat from a sheet press to consolidate the recycled plastic into slabs that can be used to create household items.
Wong says the idea for the company arrived during the pandemic like the takeout containers that were being used for lunch at his fintech startup, while restaurants were closed to eat-in diners.
“After lunches, there’d be a huge pile of takeout containers,” says Wong. “And we thought, there has to be a better use for this than having it end up in the landfill.”
Many of the containers were made of black plastic, which can’t be recycled because the pigment blocks optical sorters in recycling plants from identifying the type of plastic the container is made of.
“We ended up going down a different rabbit hole trying to find ways to prevent the plastic from ending up in the landfill,” says Wong.
Both men have a background in science, not business. Research led them to Precious Plastic, a not-for-profit organization founded by Dave Hakkens in 2013 in the Netherlands.
Hakkens’ goal is to provide people with the tools and know-how that he had begun using to recycle plastic. His methods have included making instructional videos and open-source designs for low-cost machinery so recycling can be done locally, including areas in the developing world.
Wong and Sreekuladevan were able to cobble together some startup money by entering pitch competitions, including a successful pitch at a competition for former students of St. Michael’s College School, of which Wong is an alumnus. He says they also got a small grant from Canada Starts, an organization created by industry to support entrepreneurs.
Perhaps the biggest physical contribution, however, came from the research department of George Brown College, which built the sheet press — modifying a design from Precious Plastic — that Plastic Flux is now using to meld together the bits of recycled plastic.
George Brown runs about 100 projects a year with partners from a wide range of industrial sectors, applying for federal and provincial funding to help develop products and equipment, as well as do research in areas such as social innovation, built environments and interactive design.
In 2021-22, the school received $4.8 million in funding, bringing its historical total to $90 million since 2007. The equipment it built for Wong and Sreekuladevan belongs to Plastic Flux.
“The intellectual property that we generate, everything belongs to the industry partner,” says John-Allan Ellingson, a principal investigator at George Brown who worked with the company. “All the work we do, physical as well as the design, that is the property of the industry partners. So it’s their equipment.”
Plastic Flux currently sells coasters, but it is working on designs for several types of tables. The materials come from the company’s two collection sites, where the public can drop off clean plastic containers made of high density polyethylene — identified with the number 2, in the triangle on the container’s bottom — or number 5, which is polypropylene. The collection sites are at the Green Jar store on St. Clair Avenue W. and the 6×8 Market in Kensington.
Wong says that people often question the price of the plastic coasters ($40 for four, $60 for six) that he sells at the Kensington Market site because consumers assume the product is virgin plastic, which is much less expensive than recycled plastic, and people also think the items are mass-produced.
“We have been getting feedback where people are saying, ‘Hey, the prices are too high.’ Or ‘it looks like virgin plastic,’” says Wong. “But it’s not. We do need to do a little bit more brainstorming and experimenting in terms of how we tell our story.
“Whenever we collect plastic, we’re hand sorting it, which takes a lot of time,” he says, explaining the price, which is also affected by the time it takes to clean the plastic and shred it into flakes. “But we’re guaranteeing that the material is not going to end up landfill.”
Plastic Flux is working on a second project with George Brown, building a machine that will be used to recycle flimsy plastic flower pots into more stable containers.
Ellingson says the recycling project by Plastic Flux addressees “what the everyman” can do to help fix a glaring problem: less than 10 per cent of plastic collected in Canada gets recycled.
“I think it’s great that two entrepreneurs would take it upon themselves to tackle this,” says Ellingson. “And they spent a lot of time and effort to work on something that has a definite ecological benefit.”
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