5 female-run companies utilizing design to create a waste-free world

1,400 entries. 100 international locations. 16 winners.

In January 2021, worldwide design organisation What Design Can Do launched a worldwide competitors: a name for entrepreneurs to submit concepts for tackling waste. The No Waste Problem obtained scores of entries from creatives throughout the globe, from which judges selected 16 successful groups.

With improvements as different as ‘rising’ a brand new technology of textiles, working a community of restore golf equipment, and creating biodegradable sanitary put on from pineapple leaves and corn husks, entrepreneurs are proactively discovering options to sort out waste.

In honour of Worldwide Girls’s Day, we’ve chosen 5 inspiring female-led groups.

1. Nyungu Afrika

Durations are nonetheless a taboo subject in a lot of Africa. What’s extra, sanitary merchandise should not all the time created from probably the most pure of supplies. “Most interval merchandise in Africa are filled with plastic and poisonous chemical substances,” says Mary Nyaruai Mureithi (pictured above, left), who’s from Kenya. “They usually’re very costly for a lot of the inhabitants. Some women are utilizing feathers, cow dung or soil as an alternative to handle their durations.”

To sort out interval inequality, Mureithi launched Nyungu Afrika in 2020. With the primary merchandise scheduled to be distributed later this yr, the enterprise creates biodegradable sanitary pads from pineapple leaves and corn husks. It’s an answer that’s type to the setting, in addition to to girls. Mureithi, alongside her operations director Stella Nyambura Maina (pictured above, proper), additionally plans to donate one pad for each one bought.

Sooner or later, Mureithi hopes to open an African analysis and growth centre for ladies’s well being, which “is seen as a distinct segment subject and is uncared for in terms of analysis and innovation,” says Mureithi. “Organisations like ours are right here to finish that.”

2. Outlander Supplies

A childhood dream to avoid wasting the planet, a biotechnology diploma and a homebrewing pastime impressed Lori Goff to begin Rotterdam-based Outlander Supplies in 2018. Utilizing the wastewater produced by breweries, she and her workforce have formulated a non-toxic, non-plastic materials, which they name ‘unplastic’.

“There was no ‘aha!’ second,” she says. “I used to be educating myself to brew, chatting with lots of breweries and the subject of waste stored arising. I believed possibly there was a approach to mix biotech and brewery waste to make new compounds. Finally I realised I had another for packaging. So I left my job to begin the corporate. It was a terrifying step: a bit like leaping off a cliff into an abyss, however with hope.”

Goff is now fundraising and dealing on scaling up manufacturing of the semi-transparent, compostable materials. The workforce intends to deal with meals, cosmetics and retail purposes first. “We’ve great lab-based samples, however we’ve to have the ability to show that we are able to do it on an industrial scale,” she says, including that there’s already curiosity throughout Europe and from potential companions in south-east Asia.

In a way, Goff is within the enterprise of useful resource safety: “We’re getting into a supplies transition section throughout the globe and we’d like new supplies,” she explains. “Design is essential for our growth and what we’re making an attempt to construct for the longer term.”

3. Packing up PFAS

PFAS (perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances) have been utilized in nice portions because the Nineteen Fifties, in purposes as various as firefighting foam, non-stick cookware, waterproof clothes and meals packaging. However the injury they’ve carried out to the setting has solely just lately develop into clear.

“They’re referred to as endlessly chemical substances as a result of they don’t degrade and we don’t know methods to eliminate them,” says Emy Bensdorp, founding father of Packing Up PFAS. “There are elements of the Netherlands the place you’re suggested to not eat meals grown within the soil due to the contamination.”

Bensdorp’s commencement challenge on the Design Academy Eindhoven targeted on discovering an answer. Sandy soil might be washed however clay soil is tougher to scrub. Bensdorp found that by heating soil with a excessive clay content material to 1,000C (1,832F), PFAS may very well be damaged down. After reaching such temperatures, the soil is simply too broken to develop something in, however Bensdorp had a brainwave.

“Clay plus warmth is ceramics. So I realised we might take this polluted clay soil, put it within the kiln and use it to make bricks. We are able to destroy the chemical substances and get a clear, usable product on the finish.”

The response to her enterprise, Claybens, from the constructing sector, has been optimistic and Bensdorp is happy about bringing her innovation to market. For her, the most effective half about being an impression entrepreneur is collaborating with others to make optimistic change. “We’re all making an attempt to do one thing a bit higher than it was earlier than. These are simply inventive challenges. The query is, what are you able to give you?”

4. Trendy Synthesis

Jen Keane spent most of her profession working for sportswear giants comparable to Adidas and Nike. However in 2019, after finishing a grasp’s diploma at Central Saint Martins in London, she co-founded Trendy Synthesis. The startup is concentrated on creating the subsequent technology of supplies utilizing biology. “Nature’s the final word round financial system. It’s had 3.8bn years to determine its system of creating,” she says.

The workforce has developed a way to develop textiles product of nanocellulose, a really superb type of cellulose, which is eight instances stronger than metal. “One of many largest challenges to biomaterials up to now has been structural integrity and getting the robustness {that a} artificial or polyurethane materials offers,” Keane says. “We’ve created a brand new hybrid class of supplies that’s partially woven, partially grown to assist deal with this downside.”

Keane’s focus now’s on constructing a pilot facility to take manufacturing to the subsequent degree, and start partnering with the style sector. It’s an instance of how collaboration has made this innovation a actuality. “Design in isolation can’t resolve issues,” she provides. “We’ve to work with scientists, engineers, and the funding group if we wish to make actual change.”

5. Membership de Reparadores

The UK launched ‘proper to restore’ laws in 2021 however for a lot of the world, throwaway tradition continues. In Buenos Aires, Camila Naveira, Melina Scioli and their workforce based the social enterprise Membership de Reparadores in 2015.

“We realized how irritating and inefficient recycling might be and the way a lot price range governments are spending on it,” Scioli says. “However there weren’t any efforts when it comes to selling restore.”

Impressed by restore cafes in Amsterdam and by electronics restore ‘events’ within the UK, the duo have been working volunteer-led restore occasions throughout Argentina, Uruguay and Mexico, and just lately launched a web-based listing so individuals can discover repairers in Buenos Aires. They’ve created round financial system academic programmes for colleges, and are hoping to drive the motion for proper to restore laws in South America.

The ability of restore stretches far past the merchandise being fastened, Naveira says. “There’s a magic that emerges after we do these occasions. Individuals are serving to their neighbours – they’re genuinely thrilled to be there.” It’s concerning the energy of group, Scioli provides. “We consider many of the challenges we face when it comes to the local weather and ecological disaster will probably be solved by community-based options.”

Principal picture: Lori Goff, founding father of Outlander Supplies. Credit score: Josje Deekens/ASN Financial institution