Pooja Apte Badamikar is the Founder of BlinkGreen, an eco-friendly startup that upcycles tyre scrap to make fashion worthy footwear. Like many in India, Pooja completed her engineering and took up a job in the IT sector. She worked there for about four years while completing her post-graduation in renewable energy from The Energy and Research Institute (TERI).

“Environment and sustainability has always been my passion since school days. TERI is a well-known university for the related courses. I wanted to start my career in the environmental sector, which is why I opted for a PG in Renewable Energy subject,” Pooja says.

While hunting for a job in this very niche sector, she came across the field of upcycling waste material, specifically tyres. “Upcycling is the best way to reduce landfills. With very minimum investment we can start the business. The most important part here is that we can replace the virgin material normally used and hence reduce the use of natural resources like oils and water.”

With the drive to reduce landfills and waste in our country Pooja looked across the globe for ways to utilise scrap tyres for footwear. She says, “During my post-graduation I started reading about upcycling and recycling of different materials. Very few of us know that tyre waste is a very serious issue and a miniscule amount is recycled out of it. So, I started brainstorming on the topic and the idea that footwear can be made from scrap tyres worked. It also helps to reduce landfills. Then I started working on the idea and with the help of local cobblers, we were successful in making 2 prototypes of footwear where the soles were made of upcycled tyres. The first prototype was made up of airplane tyres and the second one was made of scrap truck tyres.”

Putting her ideas and education together, Pooja was able to develop two prototypes and was ready to show the country how we can help the environment and make it sustainable. “I enrolled myself in the startup India competition – ‘Start Up yatra.’ To my surprise, I won an award for ‘Upcoming Women Entrepreneur’ in Nov 2018. That’s when the journey started for me by turning the idea into business.”

So, how does she upcycle tyres?

“We have a few local sources in Pune who supply old tyres and we get them machine cut and use them to cover the bottom part with the footwear.” BlinkGreen also employs several women from self-help groups to work on stitching the fabric for the footwear. Put all this together and you get great footwear that reduces tyre waste and helps save the environment.

We asked Pooja how she was able to start a business like this, “I won Rs 50,000 in the ‘Upcoming Woman Entrepreneur’ category, organised by the Maharashtra State Innovation Society for ‘Start Up yatra’. In July 2019, I approached the Bank of India for a Mudra loan for small businesses and this is all the funding options that have helped me sustain my startup.”

Great start. But, can this work?

“Until now we have upcycled around 500 kgs of waste tyres. Which means we have 500 kg less tyre waste in our landfills until now. Conventionally footwear soles are made of plastic or virgin rubber. Which means we have helped to reduce the use of almost equal amounts of plastic by replacing it with the scrap tyre. So, we have helped to reduce the use of a large number of resources (like oils and water) which otherwise might have been consumed for manufacturing plastic.”

Can upcycling waste as a career or a business?

“The Circular Economy has great opportunities to start your business. It will definitely help society, business and environment. But the most important part in the upcycling business is, it should not jeopardize the quality of the final product.”

Ecolomondo Corporation, a leading Canadian innovator in sustainable scrap tyre recycling technology, has announced that its new milling line at Hawkesbury facility has achieved a major milestone during recent testing by reaching a throughput of approximately 2,700 lbs per hour of recovered carbon black (rCB). This result surpasses the company’s projected target of 2,200 lbs per hour.

When the new milling line is completely operational, it should be able to process 2,200 pounds of rCB per hour and provide a particle size distribution of 96 percent between 10 and 15 microns. It is anticipated that the plant would process more than 1.5 million scrap tyres annually, recovering 1,350 MT of process gas while producing 4,500 MT of recovered carbon black, 5,400 MT of oil and 2,250 MT of steel.

The company expects the commercial production of rCB to start by the end of May 2025. After being contacted, offtake clients told the company that they were eagerly expecting a larger supply of steel, oil and rCB, said the company. Depending on end-product market pricing, the company's yearly income from the sale of these sustainable goods plus tipping fees of USD 145 per metric tonne is expected to reach USD 12.1 million, with an estimated EBITDA of 45 to 50 percent, added the company statement.

Jean-François Labbé, Interim CEO, Ecolomondo Corporation, said, “This is a major achievement that brings the Hawkesbury facility closer to full production and commercialisation.”

Global speciality chemicals company Orion S.A. has launched a new bio-circular carbon black called ECOLAR 50 POWDER to provide coatings manufacturers with a new solution for more sustainable coatings.

ECOLAR 50 POWDER, which is entirely based on bio-circular feedstock, has coloristic qualities that are on par with those of ordinary speciality carbon blacks and includes 100 percent biogenic raw material according to 14C analysis. The coloristic qualities of ECOLAR 50 POWDER, a low to medium colour furnace black, offer moderate tinting strength and medium jetness in mass tone applications. ECOLAR 50 POWDER offers equivalent coloristic performance for full-tone and tinting applications, as well as comparable wetting and dispersion characteristics to conventionally manufactured low-colour furnace blacks.

ECOLAR 50 POWDER outperformed other common specialist carbon blacks in achieving medium jetness in a solvent-borne alkyd/melamine stoving enamel system. It created a similar neutral undertone as well. When tested in a water-borne 1K PU coating system, ECOLAR 50 POWDER created a more neutral undertone and jetness that was on par with other regular speciality carbon blacks.

Tilo Lindner, Vice President Global Marketing – Speciality Carbon Black, Orion, said, “We’re leading the way in advancing carbon black to meet increasing industry demands for sustainable products. ECOLAR 50 POWDER enables coatings formulators to develop truly sustainable products in all kinds of coatings applications.”

LD Carbon has inaugurated Korea’s first and largest waste tyre pyrolysis plant in Dangjin, South Korea.

Located in the Dangjin Hapdeok General Industrial Complex, the plant is expected to begin full-scale operation next month. The plant is spread over 29,800 square metres and features two factory buildings and five silos. The plant has an annual capacity to process 50 kilotonnes per annum (ktpa) of tyre chips derived from end-of-life tyres (ELTs).

At the location, LD Carbon uses a two-step pyrolysis process, first turning ELTs into solid char and pyrolysis oil. After that, the business uses a secondary pyrolysis process to further compress the char and create recovered carbon black (rCB). It is anticipated that the Dangjin facility would generate 20 ktpa of rCB and 24 ktpa of pyrolysis oil, which is a substantial increase above the combined output of 7 ktpa at its current pilot plant in Gimcheon. When compared to traditional carbon black, the rCB generated by the technique is said to lower carbon emissions by up to 32 ktpa.

The company is planning to build plants overseas and intends to join the Asian market soon. It has also struck a 10-year offtake deal with SK Incheon Petrochem for its pyrolysis oil.

Speciality chemicals company LANXESS India organised its first exclusive Solutions Day event in Mumbai today to showcase its diversified and sustainable product portfolio to customers and other key stakeholders.

The event was organised to promote the idea of ‘One LANXESS’, where its business units – namely Advanced Industrial Intermediates, Flavors & Fragrances, Inorganic Pigments, Liquid Purification Technologies, Lubricant Additives Business, Material Protection Products, Polymer Additives, Rhein Chemie and Saltigo – displayed their distinctive products and solutions at the event. It provided an opportunity to highlight the cross-business synergies that characterise LANXESS' integrated approach and to present the company's cutting-edge solutions designed for a variety of industrial applications.

Three main business sectors, namely Advanced Industrial Intermediates, Speciality Additives and Consumer Protection Products, are currently the emphasis of LANXESS's strategy shift from a polymers to speciality chemicals company. In order to improve the value provided to clients, the event sought to promote cooperation and creativity across these various business divisions. In order to promote knowledge exchange, discover possible areas for collaboration and capitalise on the capabilities of each business unit to propel overall development and success, the day included interactive workshops, technical presentations and networking opportunities.

Namitesh Roy Choudhury, Vice Chairman & Managing Director, LANXESS India, said “Our goal with Solutions Day is to strengthen our existing partnerships and explore future collaborations that support sustainable industry growth. Through this event, we want to highlight LANXESS’ integrated offerings to all our stakeholders and address the global industrial challenges through the combined power of sustainable chemistry, innovation and responsible business.”