Denovia Labs: The Plastic Remanufacturing Company Changing The World As We Know It

It usually takes 450 years for a single piece of plastic to fully decompose, but this company’s cutting edge technology shaves that time down to fifteen minutes. Istok Nahtigal and Nick Spina of Denovia Labs came together to create a solution for plastic food packaging, and along the way have discovered a revolutionary way for humans to recycle plastic. Now, their goal is to help businesses across North America manage their plastic waste like never before.

Around the world, one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute, while up to five trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year - and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Fast fashion, cigarette butts, plastic straws, and much more, are all contributing to earth’s growing plastic problem.

In fact, plastics and microplastics have become so prevalent in our environment that scientists have given name to a new marine microbial habitat called the "plastisphere,” in our coastal waters, directly correlating to the compound's severe environmental, social, economic and health consequences that directly impact all types of life.

With plastic pollution on top of everyone’s minds, governments, businesses, and scientists around the world are looking for new and better ways to be sustainable. Istok Nahtigal, a physical organic chemist by trade with extensive experience in the pharmaceutical space, along with Nick Spina, founder of ethey, are two such individuals.

Together, they created Denovia Labs, a research company that is changing the world as we know it. Based out of London, Ontario, Denovia Labs uses a proprietary method to produce polyester monomers from both pure and impure waste content without sacrificing mechanics (steps) or economics. And the outcome? Virgin-quality plastic monomers made right before your eyes, something that Spina says is unlike anything else he’s seen before.

Currently, Nahtigal and Spina are opening up a facility for Denovia Labs which will be primarily focused on dissolving millions of pounds of polyester textiles produced each year.

“Something really exciting that we want to share is that we have a partnership with Goodwill, which is the largest second hand seller of textiles in North America, a $7 billion organization,” he says. This partnership will give Denovia Labs the opportunity to upcycle Goodwill’s clothes into a high quality monomer which can then be used for a variety of different purposes.

“There's an incredibly high percentage of donated clothes that never even reach the shelves because they have stains on them or holes in them so they can't be resold. There's almost an unlimited amount of clothes that are being shipped overseas currently, that we're going to have a big impact on,” Spina adds.

The duo’s long term goal is to create multiple, smaller conversion facilities so governments and businesses alike can manage the plastic waste material that they produce and want to convert.

“This will create local jobs, and solve a lot of the transportation issue,” Nahtigal adds. Denovia Labs is already drawing interest from exciting potential partners across a variety of industries. “We're more than likely going to be opening up many different plants all over North America to kind of combat the world's plastic waste issue. So it's exciting. It really is. And we're really at the start of something really fantastic here,” Spina says.

Instead of having to ship massive amounts of waste across the country, companies will be able to take care of their plastic waste locally. This is a game changing revolution that quite literally will change the world as we know it. With the potential to save millions, and billions, of plastic from permeating our environment, we can begin to manage our plastic waste problem for good.

“Not only can we have really incredible business out of this, but we'll be making a very big impact on the planet and that's definitely something that new companies in this area need to have. I think we've got the responsibility to do that, so that's what we're going to do,” he concludes.

If you would like to learn more about the company that is successfully reshaping plastic waste management, be sure to visit Denovia Lab’s website today.