What if we tell you that plastics no longer need to take 1000 years to decompose? Tommy Tjiptadjaja, CEO & Co-Founder of Greenhope, can squeeze that number down to 1-5 years depending on needs.
Greenhope helps the world convert toward more sustainable consumption and production through technologies in sustainable plastics and agritechnology. Ecoplas, its patented cassava/tapioca-based degradable bioplastic, is sourced from farmer cooperatives across Indonesia who receive a ‘Fair for Life’ certified trade price for their work. Ecoplas has been used to make shopping bags, landfill covers, garbage bags, dog waste bags, packaging, and more. Greenhope collaborates with various parties across governments, the private sector, and NGOs in ten countries around the world (and expanding rapidly) to deliver systemic changes for a better and more sustainable world.
DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD
DOING WELL BY DOING GOOD
greenhope is redesigning the future of plastic through biobased biodegradable & biodegradable plastic technology
greenhope is redesigning the future of plastic through biobased biodegradable & biodegradable plastic technology
For real impact to be widespread and sustainable, Greenhope believes that any solutions to address the above problem needs to achieve four things:
Effective and reliable in its technological claims and functional, bringing clear environmental benefits
Economical, therefore can be adapted by vast majority of the market as oppose to expensive, niche product affordable by select few
Scalable, can be produced efficiently at scale, even better utilizing existing equipment
Contextual, suitable for the local socio-cultural, behavior, income level, land area, of the country and people
Greenhope’s two main technologies, oxo-biodegradable additive Oxium and cassava-based Ecoplas that biodegrades achieve just that. Adding Oxium to various Plastic products will speed up the Plastic’s molecular and chemical degradation (not physical fragmentation causing microplastic) by cutting off its long hydro carbon chains allowing microbes to eat and biodegrade it. Products made of Ecoplas will biodegrade, photodegrade, and oxodegrade simultaneously once thrown out.
Both technologies have been widely tested, scrutinized, highlighted, locally and internationally such as World Economic Forum, Institute of Marketecology Switzerland (IMO), Southeast Asia and Germany’s certification labs, and many others.
Greenhope seeks like-minded partners, plastic producers, brand owners, NGOs, government agencies, to collaborate and apply our technologies to together solve the Plastic waste challenge. We believe working together is the only way to achieve our common objective.
3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) is good and we actively support it, however it is not enough because it does not deal with Plastic’s end-of-life. We need the 4th R: Return to Earth, to really return plastic naturally back to earth and holistically close the life cycle loop
We all need to use only what we need. Education, advocacy, incentives as well as disincentives (e.g. paid plastic shopping bags) to achieve this can be implemented.
Product design, education, should encourage Reuse as much as possible. For example in Indonesia, the thin plastic shopping bags are heavily reused as garbage can liner, to the point that the thicker garbage liner plastic that is prevalent in developed countries do not exist.
It is critical to continue improve plastic recycling rate, we all should do our best here. However, we need to also recognize there are real technical (e.g. multi-layer laminated plastic packaging) and economical (e.g. bulky polystyrene as well as other low value items are hard to collect economically) limitations. Plastic is also generally cannot be recycled forever (it downgrades).
After allowing for all 3R above, the biodegradable technology then will biodegrade the Plastic at chemical and molecular levels – cutting off its long hydrocarbon chains (not physical fragmentation!), allowing microbes to consume it and help reduce accumulation at the landfill. It will degrade the plastic within 2-5 years, much better than natural 500-1000 years.
WE ARE HONORED TO BE PART OF THESE AMAZING MOVEMENTS, TOGETHER CHANGING THE WORLD TO BE A BETTER PLACE
IN COLLABORATION & CONSULTATION WITH