Enzyme engineering helps infinite recycler Samsara Eco break down plastic waste to ‘building blocks’

“We need to think of the plastic problem as not just a problem of waste, but also a problem of carbon given that virgin plastic is made using this extractive process from fossil fuels,” says Vanessa Vongsouthi, research founder at Samsara Eco.

Evocative images of floating plastic islands, litter-filled beaches and distressed animals have become symbolic reminders of why the fight against plastic waste is so important, but the carbon footprint involved in creating that plastic in the first place is often neglected in conversation. 

Infinite recycler Samsara Eco aims to address these dual problems through its library of novel, synthetic enzymes that can break down plastic waste into the "building blocks" of new products - a proposition that has attracted more than $150 million in funding since 2022 alone, and industry partners including fashion group lululemon and polymeriser NILIT.

As part of an ongoing series on the circular economy, Vongsouthi tells Business News Australia about the unexpected moment that her and Matthew Spence's research found an avenue for commercialisation, and how motivation for the cause has fostered a culture of collaboration in a team that has grown from four to 100 since 2021. 

As Samsara Eco gears up for the opening of its new innovation campus at Jerrabomberra outside Canberra this year, Vongsouthi is excited as the company strives towards adding to milestones in breaking down new types of waste "currently considered too difficult to recycle".

Having developed a proof-of-concept of polyester anorak jackets with global clothing brand lululemon that have been made available to customers, she says Samsara Eco will work with the multinational to produce larger volumes at the innovation campus, as a "space for brands to test and learn" for scaling new products derived from plastic waste utilising its technology."

She hopes Samsara Eco will further integrate into lululemon's value chain to displace the production of virgin polymer, made from fossil fuels, for textiles.

"We’re actively talking to a number of potential partners and brands, lululemon obviously being one of them, and NILIT being another one that we’ve announced publicly," she says.

"That’s a partnership that will be key to the scale up of our Nylon 6,6 process, with NILIT being a key polymeriser within the industry."

This last comment might require some explanation. Vongsouthi says that, to the company's knowledge, it is the first company to engineer a characterised enzyme capable of breaking down Nylon 6,6, which is a tougher, premium fibre that is used in a wide range of products from activewear to automotive parts.

Samsara has also expanded its scope to another material used in similar industries, Nylon 6, increasing its arsenal to tackle increasingly complex waste streams.

Where NILIT fits in is that polymeriser companies traditionally use virgin raw materials extracted from fossil fuels in order to "create the virgin polymers that go into all of the products that we consume today".

"We jump into that cycle and plug-in recycled raw materials that then go on to generate recycled polymer that has the same quality as those materials," Vongsouthi explains.

"We're also a plug-in solution to a lot of the existing infrastructure because we're not asking polymerisers to change the way they make their polymers; we’re just changing the source of where the raw materials come from.

"We’re continuing to expand on this. What we're anticipating is a customer base of cross-sector supply chains, including automotive, electronics and consumer packaged goods, who are eager to replace virgin plastic with more sustainable alternatives. Our technology is naturally going to grow to meet their needs."

Apart from the scale of Samsara's scientific achievements and growth, what is also remarkable is its speed of development, demonstrating a rapid scale-up in a deep tech sector where patience is not just a virtue, but a necessity.

Its origins go back just to 2018 when Vongsouthi decided to pursue her PhD in engineering. In that same year, China put in place new policies banning waste imports, incentivising countries like Australia to innovate with new solutions, and three years later a serendipitous connection would lead to the founding of Samsara Eco.

"I was fascinated by the way in which we can use our understanding of chemistry and physics to manipulate biology towards useful properties and functions," says the scientist of what drove her to the field.

"There are actually many naturally occurring enzymes that were well known at the time for their ability to break down plastics like PET, so myself and Matthew Spence, Samsara’s other research founder embarked on a project during our PhDs where our aim was to engineer synthetic versions of these naturally occurring enzymes to be more suitable for industrial recycling processes.

"We initially had a purely academic foundational research lens on this work."

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The research was taking place at the Australian National University (ANU), and it was through a news article published by ANU that the scientists came to link up with investment and business development expert Paul Riley, now Samsara Eco's CEO, and thus early backers Main Sequence Ventures and Woolworths Ventures as well.

"It was quite unexpected how it occurred. Matt and I put our academic research out there on an Australian National University news article, and our CEO Paul Riley happened to come across that article," Vongsouthi says.

"He was actually scouring the world really for the right technology to address this clear problem in the plastic recycling market," she says, adding he was reading that publication in particular as his daughter was studying at the university.

"That was definitely a pivotal moment - very surprising and unexpected, and I think we were very fortunate for that connection to have occurred."

Since then the company has gone from a team of four at a single lab bench in 2021 to almost 100 people now, facing all kinds of challenges along the way.

"We’ve grappled with and learnt from new challenges every time we've taken a leap in scale or raised the bar in the feed stocks or conditions that we're trialing with this enzymatic process," she says.

"It's a really complex system requiring a lot of finetuning of biological and chemical processes, as well as engineering at every scale to really optimise the techno-economics and environmental footprint of what will eventually be a commercial, scaled process.

"The way we meet these technical challenges has been with a really world-class team that spans across bioengineering, process chemistry, chemical engineering, and seasoned professionals from the polymer industry as well."

As for the venture itself, she adds that being a global company early on was essential due to the small size of the Australian market, and one of the challenges was definitely finding the right brands and partners in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

Samsara Eco has made encouraging moves in this regard, and other areas that have perhaps been less challenging than other ventures include talent attraction and keeping a positive, productive work culture.

"One thing that really helps to maintain the culture as we have grown, with a positive culture of collaborating together and being well aligned, is that we have such a strong ambition and mission as a company," she says.

"I genuinely feel that everyone within our team is personally connected to that mission of wanting to solve that plastic waste crisis, and as part of that, also address the climate crisis."

She says it is motivating to be working on a project that may contribute to a solution.

"I think we spend a lot of our time also grappling with the reality of the plastic waste challenge," Vongsouthi says.

"10 billion tonnes of plastic have been produced to date, and globally less than 10 per cent of all plastic and less than 1 per cent of textiles is recycled, so it is disappointing to think about how much plastic currently ends up in landfill, gets incinerated or leaks into the environment.

"Using our technology I feel hopeful that we’re creating the conditions for change, developing a solution that is scalable and enables us to break waste plastics back down to the building blocks that they're made of in the first place, so that we can really start to displace the production of virgin plastic from fossil fuels."

When asked what advice she would give other scientists looking to commercialise their research, Vongsouthi puts an emphasis on reiteration.

"I think to scientists in particular looking to really translate their research from the lab into making an impact in the real world, I would say, be prepared to fail fast and pivot often, to really turn your initial ideas into something that's scalable and commercially relevant," she says.

"There are so many things about our technology that we really had to take apart and rethink along the way, and we'll continue to keep doing this as we scale so it is a very hard and gruelling process, but I think it's a necessary one to have the best chance at success.

"It's really encouraging that it's an increasingly active area of research, and that there are a lot of academics working on this because there are 10 billion tons of plastic out there, and we need a lot of solutions to be able to tackle that."