Every year 8M tonnes of plastics trash enter the sea. Plastic materials that leak into the environment are a global pollution problem as they may take up to 2.000 years to degrade. The European Parliament agreed on measures to eliminate single-use plastics by 2030 as part of the EU Plastics Strategy. We have to be aware about the need to shift our industry and the use of biodegradable bioplastics. A potential solution are PHA bioplastics, biodegradable and produced by bacteria. Unfortunately, because of their costly production process, currently marketed PHA (5-20€/kg) cannot compete with conventional plastics (1-2€/kg) VEnvirotech Biotechnology is a biotechnology start-up founded in April 2018 aiming to offer a solution to the plastic problem by transform organic waste into biodegradable PHA bioplastics while using bacteria. Our innovation relies on the application of biotechnology to organic waste treatment processes at industrial scale to obtain a revalorized product in the form of bioplastic. We have developed two processes: a waste treatment process that uses bacteria to digest organic waste from industrial companies. By inducing feeding and famine cycles to bacteria with the grinded and fermented organic waste, bacteria accumulate PHA bioplastic as energy reserve. This selective pressure process is repeated in our VE-Box a portable processing plant capable of producing high quality PHA biodegradable bioplastics as added-value from organic waste. The bacteria with PHA is taken from the VE-Box to VEnvirotech’s centralized plants to extract, purify and formulate our VE-0plastic. We can reduce by 30% the costs of waste management and by 50% the price of bioplastic. The opportunity in the global waste management market and bioplastics market represents a combined TAM of €447B by 2024. We have defined a commercialization strategy to start in Spain by 2022 and expand to Europe in the following years. By 2024 we expect to have €75M in revenues and a net profit of €11M

SEALIVE aims at demonstrating innovative circular strategies for bio-based plastics in land and sea applications. The project will be driven by economically and technically sustainable business models based on materials with advanced properties, design for circularity techniques and end-of-life solutions. It will establish a partnership of raw material providers, convertors, end users, recyclers, policy experts, certification organizations and NGOs to demonstrate solutions within a shared vision for circular plastic strategies. Solutions for reusable, recyclable and biodegradable bio-based plastics to prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds will be demonstrated in four pilot territories: Cyprus, Ireland, France and Denmark (or Non-European site). Innovative formulations based on PHAs, PLA and starch materials with advanced properties will be developed following recycling, biodegradability (marine and land) and composting standards. Design for circularity techniques (recyclable multi-layer single packaging materials, digital materials for traceability) and End-of-life solutions (high precision NIR-based mechanical recycling, controlled biodegradation/composting in natural and industrial conditions) will be upscaled at TRL6. Solutions will be applied to 8 end-applications with high potential for pollution reduction of soils and water media: rigid food containers, flexible packaging, agricultural films, fish crates, fishing nets and aquaculture mesh bags. Pre-normative research will be carried out to improve current standards for biodegradation, composting and recycling with regards to eco-toxicity, safety and influence of plastic ageing. Policy recommendations at EU and global level will be provided in order to build a common framework enabling pollution reduction of land and sea via sustainable bio-based plastics solutions.