This might actually be a good thing
By Angelica Marie Sanchez, Waterloo University Relations
Current
plastic waste management methods are costly and harmful to the
environment — and common biodegradable alternatives, like soggy
paper straws, fall short as a replacement.
MetaCycler BioInnovations has
changed that by creating a better bio-based plastic alternative that
combines the flexible properties of traditional plastic and is 100
per cent biodegradable. The Velocity startup produces polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA),
a biodegradable polymer, by engineering bacteria to convert waste from
milk and cheese production. It’s a solution that upcycles waste
from the dairy industry into cost-effective, sustainable bio-based
plastics.
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“There’s a shift towards sustainable materials like seaweed and sugarcane, but their material properties often fall short compared to conventional plastics,” says Eugenia Dadzie, co-founder and director of communications at MetaCycler. “At MetaCycler, we extract the PHA that can be formed into pellets for plastic manufacturers to use. Our startup tackles the problem of food waste and plastic pollution in one solution.”
Dadzie met
her co-founders Nicole LeBlanc and Aranksha Thakor as PhD
students under the supervision of Dr. Trevor Charles, a biology professor
at Waterloo.
MetaCycler started
as a research project by Thakor, collaborating with dairy processing
company, Fairlife. The company approached Dr. Charles’ lab, seeking
innovative ways to repurpose their waste production.
Dr. Charles
saw the potential of commercializing Thakor’s work and brought the team
together due to their similar research on molecular biology.
Together with Jonathan Parkes, a PhD student from the University of
Guelph, they established MetaCycler.
In just two
years, the startup has secured funding from United College’s GreenHouse Social
Impact incubator, Waterloo’s Velocity incubator and
other Waterloo programs. In September 2024, Dadzie and LeBlanc
joined the inaugural Entrepreneurial PhD Fellowship program at
the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business, where
they are commercializing this sustainable plastic solutions
while continuing their doctoral studies.
“Waterloo's
strength in research and innovation has become very central to my academic
journey,” Dadzie says. “Although I’m on a different career path
than I originally envisioned, I enjoy being in an environment
that encourages you to think outside the box, and it changed the way
I saw entrepreneurship.”
The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs granted the team $200,000 in funding to support the pilot and demonstration of MetaCycler's production of bio-based plastics. MetaCycler is also collaborating with Dairy Farmers of Ontario as the team seeks to connect with producers and processors to find more waste from the dairy industry to use.
