Dusseldorf Getting rid of microplastics with the help of bacteria – the start-up Bioweg from the small town of Quakenbrück in Lower Saxony is working on this idea. The microbes produce environmentally friendly substitutes for cosmetics, personal care products or coated seeds and fertilizers from organic waste.
A few days ago, Bioweg announced a cooperation with Ginkgo Bioworks. The US biotech company is known for its main investor, Bill Gates. The Microsoft founder is enthusiastic about Ginkgo’s idea of being able to program cells like software. With their help, Bioweg wants to manufacture its products more cheaply and quickly.
Bioweg was founded in 2019 by Srinivas Karuturi and Prateek Mahalwar. The path taken by the two Indians to the German provinces was unusual: Karuturi studied biotechnology and economics in Bangalore, later switched to the Daimler division in Bengaluru and went to Stuttgart as a manager in 2014.
Mahalwar is also a biologist with a focus on stem cell research. He came to the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology in Magdeburg from India and later did his doctorate at the Max Planck Institute with Nobel Prize winner Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard. In 2016 he switched to the management consultancy EY-Parthenon.
The two scientists got together three years ago with the aim of founding a company “that helps the world”. They came up with the problem of microplastics: very small plastic particles that are released, for example, from shampoo, sunscreen or fertilizer and that end up in the oceans and penetrate the soil.
The duo’s idea: to replace the plastic with natural materials that have the necessary suppleness or shine. In a garage, they experimented with bacteria and fermentation. She went to Quakenbrück to save money. This is where the German Institute for Food Technology is based, whose facilities Bioweg was able to use.
Why is that important?
Microplastics are a problem. Environmental toxins such as heavy metals or pesticides can stick to the particles. They come from shoes, tires or lipsticks. In humans, they then end up via the food chain; fish, for example, eat the particles together with plankton. But microplastics also get into the body through drinking from reusable bottles.
In a 2022 study, the University of Amsterdam demonstrated that microplastics occur in the human vascular system or blood. The researchers cannot yet say conclusively whether this is harmful to health. Bioweg boss Mahalwar refers to a study by the University of Newcastle, according to which every person ingests five grams of microplastics per week: “That can cause cancer, hormone disorders or other problems.”
>> Read also: Shoes, tires, cosmetics – how the danger of microplastics can be prevented
In 2022, the EU Commission banned plastic particles of five millimeters or less from being released into the environment. Depending on the product, they may no longer occur in just a few years.
The alternatives must be biodegradable within 60 days. This puts pressure on manufacturers of cosmetics, detergents or fertilizers to find materials with the same functionality, and so they knock on the door of start-ups like Bioweg.
How does this work?
The idea is not revolutionary. The Bioweg founders searched through research papers for more than half a year. Mahalwar reports that there have been enough academic studies on the subject. What was missing: bringing them together for a solution.
Bioweg works with bacteria that are used in the production of the tea drink Kombucha. The basis for the substitute is waste such as molasses or leftover vegetables. These process the bacteria into cellulose, which is said to have the same properties as microplastic beads.
The competition is fierce: there are numerous start-ups such as Calyxia from France or Matter from England that offer different alternatives to microplastics. But there is a lot of interest in Bioweg. “In addition to being 100% biodegradable in 60 days, our microbeads are highly functional and perform twice as well as plant-based or comparable micropowders on the market,” advertises co-founder Mahalwar.
Well-known consumer goods and agricultural groups are already customers – the company does not name names. But the rush is so great that interested parties have to be put off. Bioweg’s material is used in personal care and cleaning products, agricultural coatings and other industrial applications.
What’s next?
One of the main problems of the bacterial cellulose industry is the high production costs. That is why Bioweg is cooperating with Ginkgo, which uses its “ultra-high-throughput genome engineering” to develop new bacterial variants that work more efficiently. Bioweg aims to complete the first plant with a capacity of 1000 tons per year in 2025. Further production facilities are planned in Asia and North America in the years to come.
The money for this comes from the EU, which funded the company with a total of 12.5 million euros, and venture capitalists.
Interest should be great if Bioweg can maintain and expand its customer base by then. Mahalwar’s ambitions are definitely high. By 2030, he wants to achieve annual sales of one billion euros. That’s not much: “That’s only 0.3 percent of the total market for cellulose of 250 billion euros,” he says. And you will serve this market with sustainable and circularly obtained cellulose.
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