Episode 7 – Biodegradable Plastics From Waste – Jeff Beegle and Tony Bova, Mobius


Thanks in part to successful campaigns and thanks also to the visual and tangible nature of the problem. The environmental issue of non-biodegradable plastics is more well known that ever before. Despite efforts to recycle more of it a huge 91% of plastics still aren’t recycled, ending up in landfills or in the oceans, taking around 400 years to degrade. We obviously must continue to curb our use of plastics in daily life but you know here we understand that some disruption of the current technology can also go a long way to tackling the issue much more quickly.

One of the ways to disrupt our plastic problem is to make plastics that degrade much faster and this is what the disruptive environmentalists I speak to today are doing, and they are doing this in the most environmentally way possible by using the waste product from another industry as the raw ingredient.

Following on from last week I wanted to talk to a startup who are still fairly near the beginning of their disruptive environmental business journey and see how they are approaching things. Tony Bova and Jeff Beegle met at University in Ohio studying bioengineering and found friendship through a shared passion for environmental issues and entrepreneurship. After both attending grad school at The University of Tennessee, they went on to eventually to apply work Tony had been working on in the program to set up the company Mobius.  

Many people may find themselves working on issues such as this just like Jeff and Tony during time spent in academia but until someone takes that research and puts it out there in the world for consumers to buy, the possibility of solving the environmental problem is all just theory. I want to see what the journey has looked like for these guys taking the leap from academia into entrepreneurship and the challenges they’ve faced and lessons they’ve learned so far.

Rob Wreglesworth

Rob is the head writer at Innovate Eco sharing knowledge and passion cultivated over 10 years working in the Environmental Sector. He is on a mission to build a community of people that are passionate about solving environmental problems.

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