Healthcare is awash in single-use plastics. In U.S. healthcare facilities alone, more than 2,800 tons of plastic packaging and products are thrown out every day.
Few people are more aware of this than Eddie Yu. Early in the pandemic, Yu founded a company that made disposable masks. One day, his niece was with him while he was sorting recycling, and she asked him whether his mask was also recyclable.
“I told her that actually we can’t recycle the mask,” he told TechCrunch. “She just interrupted me and said, ‘Oh, then you make a lot of trash every day.’”
The little girl’s words stuck with Yu, and after selling the mask company in 2021, he set out to make amends.
In an effort to tame healthcare’s single use plastic problem, Yu’s new company, Okosix, has developed a new bio-based, biodegradable polymer. Okosix is part of Startup Battlefield, and it will be presenting at TechCrunch Disrupt later this month in San Francisco.
Okosix blends various compounds including cellulose, chitosan derived from crustacean shells, wax, and a proprietary material. The result is cheaper than polylactic acid (PLA), a widely used biodegradable plastic, with functionality that is “the same or even better than PLA,” Yu said.
Among plastics, the term “biodegradability” is often misused, Yu said. Some require very specific conditions to decompose, while others simply fall apart into micro- or nanoplastics.
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“We’ve got international certifications to prove that the material is completely gone in six months,” Yu said.
Okosix is starting with face masks, but it plans to also make surgical gowns, diapers, and sanitary napkins, Yu said. “We want to use a safe material, non-plastic, to replace fossil plastics for disposable products.”
Though the company has yet to perform a formal lifecycle analysis, Yu said that Okosix’s material should have a carbon footprint that’s 90% lower than that of polypropylene, a widely-used single-use plastic.
Okosix sells its material to third parties, which then turn it into various products. “At the moment, our business model is like Gore-tex,” Yu said. “We don’t make the finished products, but we make the layer, we make the raw materials, and then we work with companies like 3M.” He added that branding could become a significant part of the business, similar to Gore-tex.
The startup has raised $2.3 million, including investments from the founders and other angel investors.
Hear more from Okosix and dozens of other startups firsthand, participate in valuable workshops, and make lasting connections at this year’s Disrupt, taking place October 27 to 29 in San Francisco.
