Origin: Micro-circularity
Client: Startup (co-founder)
Partners: Zero Waste Scotland, Robert Gordon University, Historic Environment Scotland
Services: Product Design, Design for Manufacture, In-house Production, Fund Raising, Business Development
Impact: Over 340kg of plastic diverted from landfill, Numerous Press Coverage (STV News / thought leadership pieces / local newspapers), over 10,000 people engaged with communicating origin approach (valuing plastic as a material).
The Problem With Plastic?
Plastic isn’t bad - it’s simply used badly. Plastics save lives every day. To date, we have produced 8+ billion tonnes of plastic - of which, 6.3 billion tonnes is already considered waste (a large proportion of which was used for less than 15 minutes).
Bio plastics offer potential in reducing our reliance on virgin petrochemical polymers however these require huge amounts of energy to industrially compost.
Even when plastics are recycled, they rely on circular economies that operate on such a large global scale that it becomes opaque - whilst generating huge amounts of CO2 as a result of the logistics involved in transporting this waste around the planet.
OUR VISION
What if we recycle the already 8+ billion tonnes of waste plastic?
What if we did this is in the location where the waste is generated (no supply chain CO2 generation)? What if we did this in highly visible public spaces - in full view of the public?
A decentralised model, with fully contained Origin hubs, capable of collecting, recycling and transforming local plastic waste into something useful in front of your eyes. Local circular economies that negate the need to collectively ship plastic waste around the world and bring transparency to plastic recycling.
Founded in 2019, origin worked tirelessly to prove its founding principle that waste could be collected and transformed locally - and that the general public would care enough to back origin with their wallets.
We developed and built our own recycling machinery (shredder / injection moulder / extruder), eventually upgrading to an industrial shredder. We raised capital to establish our first micro hub in Aberdeen, as well as fund a plastics audit in Orkney with Zero Waste Scotland. We developed 4 products and sold over 2500 units of these products. We developed a bespoke product in partnership with Historic Environment Scotland that was sold at their flagship store in Edinburgh Castle. We setup a pop-up origin retail unit in the centre of Aberdeen and engaged with thousands of members of the public - demystifying the world of plastics.
Origin ceased operating in 2024 as a result of a changing funding landscape and limited time to operate the business alongside a full time job teaching at Gray's.