The image of a turtle swimming through a soup of plastic pollution is enough to make most of us feel overwhelmed and hopeless.
But for marine scientist, oceanographer and turtle-lover Dr Julia Reisser, the enormity of the plastic challenge inspired one of Australia’s most exciting startups.
Julia sat down with A Positive Climate to share her journey, which began as a scientist and morphed into her current role as entrepreneur at the helm of Uluu - a local startup tackling one of the biggest environmental challenges.
After completing her PhD in plastic pollution, Julia tells us that she was determined to apply her expertise to solve real-world problems.
“When I finished my PhD, even though I loved science, I wanted to go more into translating science into solutions on the ground,” she explained.
After stints with Ocean Cleanup and Mindaroo (Andrew Forrest’s family office), she began looking for a partner to develop her idea for a sustainable, biodegradable plastic replacement.
She founded Perth-based Uluu In 2020 with Michael Kingsbury, setting out to create products that offer the convenience and familiarity of plastic, but without the toxic environmental impacts.
The Uluu plastic solution
Instead of oil, Uluu relies on sustainably farmed seaweed and seawater. Where conventional plastic pollutes the environment for centuries after use, their product is biodegradable. Rather than produce millions of tonnes of carbon pollution, their alternative offsets more emissions than it produces.
With support from angel investors, startup incubator Startmate and the University of Western Australia, in 2021 the founders began building their team, which has since grown to 17.
They have since developed a process to sustainably produce polyhydroxyalkanoates, or PHAs. The natural polyesters mimic the properties of plastic made from petrochemicals and allow manufacturers to use the same processes and equipment to produce everything from bottles to clothes and a variety of injection molded products.
Julia explained Uluu’s process. “We extract sugars from that seaweed… put it in a fermenter that has this special microbe that is able to digest those seaweed sugars. We grow lots of those microbes, we make them as fat as possible with this PHA inside them. Then we extract the PHA from those microbes.”
The PHA looks just like the white powder produced by petrochemical plastic plants, and can be melted down to form a direct substitute for the plastic pellets that manufacturers rely on today.
The process is similar to another A Positive Climate guest tackling the plastic problem, Great Wrap, who are creating PHAs from food waste.
Appetite for alternatives
Uluu is still operating at a small scale, but is building a pilot plant and working with manufacturers to better understand their needs.
Their near term focus is developing a pilot facility to scale up their laboratory trials, with an initial focus on developing luxury packaging, car interiors and furniture.
The company has already raised more than $10 million, with backing from Main Sequence, Possible Ventures, Alberts and Mistletoe, Inc. They have also attracted high profile individuals, including WA music royalty Kevin Parker (Tame Impala), supermodel Karlie Kloss and chef Neil Perry.
Julia says that their support will be vital to building momentum for a transformation on the scale they are planning.
“We are so excited to have those champions with some skin in the game because we need to create a movement around Uluu for many reasons.
“You have the food market with Neil Perry, you have fashion with Karlie Kloss and music [with Kevin Parker], which I love. They will help us create the movement around Uluu… we need the crowds to really make the shift. So watch that space,” she said.
Uluu identifies the need to establish composting capacity as a key challenge, so growing volumes of biodegradable plastic alternatives can be managed.
From a business perspective, they are focused on closing their first commercial agreements and building a brand around the company. Julia cites the trust consumers have in products like Goretex as an inspiration.
She expects to raise more capital soon to fund a larger demonstration plant in Indonesia near their seaweed farms, which she hopes will begin construction in 2025.
Reflecting on her diverse career to date, she offers simple advice for anybody considering making the leap into the world of sustainability and startups.
“Just, just kind of go for it… Don’t hold back thinking that you need to be perfect before you get out there, you know? And throw yourself into entrepreneurship. There's lots of challenges, it’s not an easy thing, but it’s so rewarding at the same time,” she said.
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