Plastale: Towards Sustainable Development through Material Innovation and Circular Economy

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The Egypt-based start-up Plastale produces composite materials for different applications out of local plastic and crop waste. Their recycling process aims to be energy and cost efficient, and the start-up focuses also on creating social impact through collaboration with local communities and local waste collectors. For this reason, International Sustainable Chemistry Collaborative Centre (ISC3) features Plastale as the ISC3 Start-up of the Month for September 2023.

Plastale uses hot-press compression moulding and extrusion compounding processes to turn the chemically pre-treated crop residue waste and the plastic waste into desired composite materials. The plastic waste can be either transformed alone as sheets or it can be mixed with the crop waste. They started with date palm waste to create reinforced recycled plastic composite material. Those sheets can be used in multiple applications like furniture, interior design and construction.

In addition, Plastale is developing an energy model using renewable energy sources and enhanced heating mechanism like utilizing heat exchangers to reduce their operational carbon dioxide emissions and to enable savings on the operational costs. In addition, Plastale works only with local suppliers of plastic waste. In that way the transportation and related costs are massively reduced, and the start-up is also creating a social impact because they are securing the income of the local suppliers who are collecting and sorting the waste.

Plastale is also considering working with Plastic Bank, Zamalek Kayak & Go Green initiative, which focuses on collecting plastic waste from the Nile river and also works on the social aspect of plastic waste. Beyond that, Plastale is aiming to empower the local communities to build proper rooftops or cladding systems for their shelters, community schools as well as furniture.

Three questions for Abdallah Hassanin, founder & CBDO of Plastale

What led to your solution in Sustainable Chemistry?

Abdallah Hassanin: The idea of Plastale’s innovation popped up back in 2018, when we were doing a university project with Enactus in the field of social entrepreneurship. Part of the project were site visits where we saw that in the rural community of Giza, there was a lot of plastic and crop waste. At the same time, the local people didn't have proper shelters with rooftops.

What does being chosen as ISC3 Start-up of the Month mean to you?

A. Hassanin: We appreciate the support of people and organisations like the ISC3, they are encouraging us despite of all the challenges we encountered.

What’s next up at Plastale?

A Hassanin: Our aim is to create a platform to collaborate with interior designers and corporates to utilize their own ways to innovate with either plastic and or the crop waste they generate in the value chain to produce products that can be fit back into the value chain and apply circular economy as a result. We have already few projects in view - recently, we collaborated with a start-up called Upfuse and Nestlé to produce jewellery from plastic waste. Another potential project called Light Box focuses on alternative material for the cladding of the boxes or containers to be installed in local farms or rural areas to be used as decentralized renewable energy units, on which solar panels are installed. And lately, we started a collaboration with SADKO, a national company that is introducing a new line for kitchen boards.