Matter - the startup with a multi-pronged approach to microplastic pollution

by Startacus Admin

Matter is an innovative startup on a mission to develop pioneering technology solutions for capturing, harvesting and recycling microplastics.

At this point, we have lost count of the number of times we have written about the severity of the impact of plastic waste on the environment and ecosystem (and startups like My Plastic Diary and The Modern Milkman who are trying to solve at least a part of the problem).

Microplastics are perhaps the worst of all, getting into the water and killing sea life, making it into our food chain, and some even making its way through filtration processes and into our drinking water. There is an average of 4.9 microplastics in every litre of water, and it’s long past time that something was done about this.

Bristol-based green-tech startup Matter thinks the same. In their own words, they are ‘an innovation company pioneering technology solutions for capturing, harvesting, and recycling microplastics’. Their approach is multi-pronged: through education, through legislation, and through research and development.

Without continuing to help people understand just how bad microplastic pollution is, and why, other efforts will always be in vain. Without that understanding, it will be harder to drive legislation to better regulate environmental pollution, which is necessary if we’re ever going to have clean water again. The need for developing technologies and materials to help clean up microplastics from the environment or to stop them entering the environment in the first place speaks for itself - especially in the absence, until now, of education and legislation.

Matter has a consumer division called Gulp, and they have created a device that connects to your washing machine to capture the microfibres that are released in every wash (about 700,000 in every wash), and stores about 20 washes worth before it needs to be emptied. This same filtration technology is on offer to businesses, as well as bespoke R&D and consultancy. On an industrial scale, the startup is working on filtration systems and technologies to prevent microplastics at the source.

In January, Matter announced that it had raised £368,000 in a pre-Series A round from the Builders Vision’s Rising Tide Fund. This comes after a £150,000 investment from the British Design Fund, and gives us at least some hope that there are still people out there willing to help bring this kind of vital work to fruition.

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• #pollution
• #greentech

Published on: 21st January 2022