We recently spoke with Minal Patel about her journey setting up LabCycle, the rapid changes happening in the sustainability space, and the journey so far and where he is headed!
Enormous amounts of single-use plastic from research and healthcare are sent to landfills or incineration due to a lack of know-how and scalable technologies. Laboratories are seeking more recycling and greener procurement while lacking available services and products. LabCycle aims to create a circular economy for laboratory plastics and change the wasteful research culture by offering:
My values led me to the goal to strive to make an impact and leave the world a better place than I came into it; protecting our environment is a priority for future generations.
During my years of working within academic and commercial labs I have witnessed the plastic pollution from labs first-hand, and so have my co-founders. Waste management is not seen as glamorous but it’s a key part of the life cycle in all systems. I wanted to be a part of shifting the current wasteful culture to sustainable research, this will benefit the many generations to come after me. So society can continue researching to make discoveries, solve mysteries and cure diseases.
Our business aligns with multiple SDG’s:
Innovation is key for the industry to move towards an environmental revolution. Many of our traditional practices are outdated and damaging; therefore businesses like ours are required to protect our planet for the future; this aligns with goal 9. Our innovation will create a circular economy for the 5 million tonne plastic waste problem; the impact of preventing laboratory plastic waste going to landfill aligns with goals 10, 14 and 15. We hope that our business will help developing countries like the UK take account of their waste which aligns with goal 12. Further to this we are in conversations with corporate companies in adopting our service and forming these partnerships will accelerate our growth and reach the SDG’s for the UK as well as the rest of the world, thus progressing goal 17.
Sustainability is to develop processes & systems which can be used for many years into the future without impacting the environment.
In our business, we have kept this ethos in mind with every step of our progression.
As a company, we have engaged with everyone within the supply chain. From the grass root level of researchers across the UK, our national survey percentage would spend 10 minutes maximum in sorting the waste for the longer impact. During the pilot run with our experience as scientists and working directly with current researchers we were able to develop a sorting system to integrate into the lab as seamlessly as we could. On the large corporate levels, sustainability is definitely a focus and interest with investors, however, it’s the government implementing policies which will drive companies towards sustainability.
There are competitive innovative grants however with start-ups and minimal funding it’s not always easy to access these as it requires a specialised grant writer. To support start-ups at our stage or earlier it would be beneficial to ironically have grants to help fund the grant-writing process.
There are organisations which we are looking to partner with such as the NHS as we scale up so we can provide them with a sustainable supply chain with our circular economy lifecycle for plastic used in their research. Other organisations we are looking to connect with in the future are the Ellen McArthur Foundation as well as waste management companies across the UK.
The Bank of England has stated effects of climate change cause a risk to the stability of the economy. A significant climate change concern is plastic pollution, it is increasingly pervasive, the life sciences sector alone produces 5 million tonnes globally. Reducing laboratory plastic waste contributes to the stabilisation of the economy as well as protecting our environment. There is a demand from recycled plastic industries for plastic, the market is projected to grow from £5.9 bn in 2019 to £7.9 bn in 2024. Our service will meet this increasing demand, create a circular economy for plastic waste and provide research institutes with a cost saving compared with conventional hazardous waste disposal. Additionally, our business will support research institutes in reaching both the UN’s global sustainability goals and the National Net Zero Target by 2030.
We have many milestones upcoming in the following year from closing our pre-seed round to having our own site in Bath working with the University of Bath. As well as working with other organisations and having additional employees as we scale up. My co-founders and I are excited, and we look forward to pushing through the new challenges and steps our business will bring.
Our ask would be for the government to implement policy to large corporate companies to accelerate sustainable initiatives and encourage them to work with start-ups that have the solutions. Additionally, I believe to have economic growth in today’s economy, environmental footprints must be a significant part of a start-up model. The social and environmental impact should have the same weight of importance as the financial gain for any company. We would look forward to working with other small businesses in the research sector to implement our services, to assist them to reduce their research carbon footprint & costs. Community is also important to us because it’s through our networks that we have been able to grow this far too, so networking with other like-minded founders, organisations, and incubators would be wonderful.
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