traceless
Business idea: Compostable plastic substitute
Industry: Packaging
Year of foundation: 2020
The material from traceless is compostable after a few weeks and can be eaten.
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traceless: A non-marking alternative to the plastic problem
Thehe research findings of Dr. Anne Lamp could revolutionize the market for bioplastics: The material she has developed is compostable after a few weeks, can be eaten and can be produced at a competitive price in the future.
In the middle of her bachelor’s degree, Anne Lamp had a crisis of purpose: What am I doing here? What good can you do with a degree in process engineering, apart from operating columns and producing pesticides? “This profession doesn’t exactly help to protect the environment. In fact, the opposite is true. I’ve always been close to nature and environmentally aware, but that didn’t fit in with my career prospects. So I went on a search to find a positive approach: That’s how I came across Cradle To Cradle (C2C) and started looking into recyclable products and production processes. Later, during my doctorate, I focused my research on the biological cycle and started looking for alternative materials,” explains the researcher, who now holds a doctorate. Born in Hamburg, she has been active in the Cradle to Cradle NGO for six years and was the founder and leader of the Hamburg regional group, among other things. She is also involved in the NGO’s educational work as a C2C trainer. These voluntary activities are a matter of honor for Anne.
The vexed environmental problem
Since 1950, plastic produced according to the linear production approach (cradle to grave) has been significantly damaging the environment in various forms. 85 percent of the plastic ever produced worldwide continues to end up in landfills or is increasingly polluting the oceans. Disposable products in particular, which often cannot be reprocessed even in countries with a functioning recycling system because they are not recyclable, threaten our environment and accelerate climate change. This is why, for example, single-use plastics will be banned in the EU from 2021.
At the Institute for Environmental Technology and Energy Economics (IUE) at Hamburg University of Technology, Anne is therefore researching environmentally friendly production processes for manufacturing alternative materials for all those products that can easily end up in the environment. Her declared aim is to stop plastic pollution.
The potential solution
Anne Lamp completed her doctorate in the field of recovering recyclable materials from agricultural waste. At the same time, she developed a process for a new, compostable material: “This is how my training as a process engineer and my voluntary work at C2C came together. The result was traceless. All of a sudden, these six years of voluntary work paid off all the more: the network I built up, the mindset of developing products for the biological or technical cycle through their design. I have benefited greatly from this experience.”
When it comes to new inventions and developments, people often ask how disruptive they are. Anne Lamp has developed an unprecedented process for producing a new material that can be used as a plastic substitute. The technology she has developed makes it possible to produce a new material from agricultural waste, from which a film, a dimensionally stable material and coatings can be obtained. These are 100% bio-based, do not compete with food production, do not require any plasticizers or other additives that are harmful to the environment or health and can be composted at home. The new material has mechanical, barrier and storage stability properties that are comparable to those of conventional plastic films and rigid plastics: “All kinds of products that end up in the environment far too often, such as to-go products or food packaging, can be replaced by these compostable materials. Of course, the aim is not to throw these products carelessly into the environment. But if they end up there, our materials do not pollute the environment,” explains the researcher. Her replacement product therefore already has good properties, but sometimes still needs to be optimized so that it works for the respective application: “I spent five years as a scientist at a research institute. This is one of the most critical professions there is. On top of that, I’m a woman, so we’re even more critical,” Anne laughs, explaining her natural skepticism.
But the question is also where we want to go with the material: In many areas, such as packaging or straws, her substitute material could already shine. However, according to Anne, we are still a long way from a machine-safe coffee cup that later decomposes itself: “Depending on the application, various requirements must be guaranteed, such as heat stability, UV stability, water resistance, etc. – and at the same time we want to maintain degradability. The material that meets all requirements and is compostable at the same time does not yet exist. We can’t expect a material that you put in the dishwasher at 100 degrees and then degrades in the home compost within two weeks. But our material doesn’t have to be able to do that either, because there are other good solutions from the technical cycle, such as the reusable coffee cup. The applicability of traceless focuses on products that are short-lived and unfortunately often end up in the environment today.”
Inspiration from the start-up culture
If Anne hadn’t stumbled upon the startup world a year and a half ago, she probably would have limited herself to just researching until today. “Christian Sigmund, the founder of Wildplastic, inspired me to start up. From the startup world, I learned this self-confidence regarding my own idea. And today I know that what matters in a pitch is the 80 per cent we’ve already achieved, not the 20 per cent that’s still missing.”
Versatile support
At that time, she also came across the Startup Dock (editor’s note: Startup Dock is now called Startup Port @TUHH). A first company had shown interest in Anne’s material at the time: “I was unsure and didn’t know my options. Startup Dock advised me and gave me tips. Sebastian Bartosch was my main contact person, but Konstantin Kollar and Dr. Andrea Otto also advised me on the start-up. They are still my sparring partners today when it comes to my pitch deck. For example, we also talk about our strategy, how we can realize things. These are all business components that researchers think less about,” she explains.
“Hamburg Innovation also helped me a lot when I applied with my biofilm project a year ago to “Calls for Transfer” (C4T), a funding program for technology transfer and innovation at universities. And when I was accepted towards the end of the year – that was great! Because if you’re sitting alone at university with an idea, you don’t have any money at first. I successfully applied again with bioplast (now traceless plast) and got the funding. C4T is simply unique in terms of speed: less than two months from application to acceptance – you won’t find that anywhere else,” says Anne with satisfaction.
The team behind the idea
Until the beginning of 2020, Anne Lamp says she only researched the topic on the side due to her doctorate. “I took part in Project Together’s ‘Act On Plastic Challenge’ back then, where systemic ways out of plastic pollution were sought and promoted. Johanna Baare – now COO at traceless – was my coach there,” says Anne about how she found her co-founder. The coaching allowed the two of them to get to know each other for around six months and gain the necessary trust. “In spring 2020, I realized that I needed a permanent partner for strategy development and financing and Johanna just had time again because her startup at the time had to make savings due to coronavirus. She has been with us since May 2020 and we complement each other perfectly: Johanna has 100% complementary expertise with her experience in strategy consulting and her MBA. She lives in Copenhagen, so everything is currently running remotely – but that’s more the norm at the moment anyway,” says the founder.
At the moment, traceless does not yet have any full-time employees, but already has a relatively large and multidisciplinary team of colleagues: Janika Ofterdinger provides support with business development. Johanna Maasackers and Haslet Alp are responsible for marketing and media. Layout, photos and graphics come from product designer Isabel Thoma, who also designs the brand and products. On the scientific side, Jan Dethloff and Sinah Kammler, who are also writing their Master’s thesis on this topic, are involved. They are researchers at the Institute of Environmental Technology and Energy Economics. “Franziska Ploch, Marc Conrad, Reiner Pürling, Helen Guttowski and Lennart Andersen and Niklas Rambow are helping with the further development of the technology: it’s about scaling up the technology and calculating costs. We are still working on a laboratory scale at the TU, but that will change at the beginning of next year. And Johanna and I hold the strings together and take care of strategic business development, financing, product and technology development … oh, everything at the same time,” Anne concludes with amusement.
The goal: industrial production
Anne is cautiously optimistic about the future. She appreciates the variety of research and business development: “Our goal is to scale up the technology to an industrial scale in several steps in the short term. With our material, we can only really prevent plastic pollution if it is affordable. Price is an important factor in becoming a real alternative to conventional plastic. In order to be able to produce cheaply, we need to grow quickly. In the long term, production in large industrial plants is the goal – to have the greatest possible impact on the plastic problem.”
More about traceless:
More about “Cradle to Cradle” (C2C):
“Cradle to Cradle” (C2C) is an approach for a continuous and consistent circular economy. The principle, which can also be perceived as a philosophy or system, was developed at the end of the 1990s by the German chemist Michael Braungart and the US architect William McDonough.
On the “Calls for Transfer” (C4T) funding programme
Launched in June 2018 as part of the new funding program for technology transfer and innovation at universities, the “Calls for Transfer” (C4T) project sponsored by Hamburg University of Technology (TU Hamburg) supports scientists whose research results will help shape our society of tomorrow. The program promotes the transfer of ideas, knowledge and technology at Hamburg’s state universities by initially supporting project applications with up to 30,000 euros. In this way, 38 different projects of a technical, scientific and medical nature as well as from the cultural sciences and humanities are already closer to their goal of sustainable realization.