Challenge
Plastic pollution affects more than just the ocean environment; it now contaminates our food, drinking water, and even our bodies, leading to cancer and infertility. The healthcare system is totally dependent on plastics to deliver therapy with the prevention of infections or contaminations as the major statistic, without taking environmental considerations into mind.
Opportunity
No market for plastic breakdown exists at the moment, but the development of regulatory incentives to remediate plastics are likely. Plastic in the oceans alone will account for a lifetime ecosystem service cost of $3.7 trillion, and plastic waste management costs are currently attributable to $32 billion.
Solution
Myco.tools will develop the ideal combination of fungus and other living things to degrade heterogeneous plastics, with centralized core experiments, decentralized experiments led by co-creators, and a community of knowledge and idea exchange. By decentralising experimentation and centralising knowledge, support and fundraising we will work together with academic researchers, enthusiasts and citizen scientists and find an ideal mix for plastic mycoremediation.
Status
Myco.tools is at a very early stage,, with the ability to replicate other people’s scientific results that show that a single fungus can digest a certain type of plastic. The next phase will be to create a symbiotic culture of several fungus that can eat filthy mixed plastics, and involve potential academic and industrial partners.
Meet the team
Joost Kruytzer
Venture Partner
Joost joined NLC in November 2016. He supports NLC, using his hands-on experience with developing young, fast-growing companies. Joost holds an MSc in Theoretical Physics and provided board-level consulting for 20 years, among others, as managing partner of healthcare specialist Plexus (later KPMG Plexus, after the acquisition he negotiated).
