Stuff4Life opens seed funding round for commercial pilot plant
Where it all began - Teesside University
After making significant progress developing its circular workwear solutions over the last twelve months and in response to clear industry, customer and policy signals, Stuff4Life is currently engaging with prospective investors to secure seed funding to scale up its business and build a polyester depolymerisation commercial pilot plant. The aim is to close the round this autumn and Stuff4Life is interested to hear from prospective investors.
Stuff4Life has agreed a partnership with specialist workwear laundry, StaySafe PPE Ltd, and is rolling out laundry, reuse and repair services to customers. Working closely with Arco, Stuff4Life has already saved hundreds of branded workwear garments from incineration by debranding and reselling, or rebranding and returning items, delivered through its 'Second Time' social enterprise. The Arco partnership has helped customers to 'wear your commitment' by committing to keep stuff in play for longer, rather than needlessly chucking stuff away simply because branding has changed.
Behind the scenes, Stuff4Life has been continuing to develop and scale up its patent-pending depolymerisation technology ready for investment. The company's efficient, low-impact hydrolysis process, which is highly selective for PET, means it can process composite high-performance workwear and PPE, recovering key components and producing high quality, recycled, Purified Terephthalic Acid (Stuff4Life™ r-PTA).
At the same time, the company has been working with government catapult CPI - the Centre for Process Innovation - on a groundbreaking project to bring automation and AI into the circular economy, to improve process efficiency, quality and safety systems. This project received funding from the Royce Foundation and will report shortly.
Along with strengthening market signals, this progress has led to investor interest and Stuff4Life is aiming to secure investment in the next quarter. The company's laundry, reuse, repair, debrand and rebrand services will continue a-pace, and subject to investment, this will be complemented by operational chemical recycling capacity around the end of this calendar year.
Stuff4Life's Chief Operations Officer, Miles Watkins, said:
"It's really ramping up now, with huge interest from customers, real commitment from partners and significant breakthroughs with our depolymerisation technology. It's extremely exciting especially because a lot of what we're already doing stacks up for forward-thinking customers in advance of producer responsibility rules kicking in. We're keen to talk to anyone who wants to get involved and we're grateful to be able to help customers to 'wear your commitment' to people and planet."
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