We're drowning in waste

Only about 20% of global waste gets recycled, even though much more could be. The problem isn't just consumer behavior — it's that recycling systems are outdated, inefficient, and can't handle the complexity of modern materials.

Sorting facilities still rely heavily on manual labor to separate different types of plastic, paper, and metal. Contamination ruins entire batches. Mixed materials and complex packaging make recycling impossible with current technology. Even when materials do get collected, there often isn't enough demand for recycled content or the quality isn't good enough for manufacturers to use.

We need smarter sorting, better processing technology, and systems that track materials through their entire lifecycle so we can design for recyclability from the start.

Every minute, the equivalent of a garbage truck full of plastic enters our oceans. Plastic doesn't biodegrade — it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces that work their way up the food chain. Microplastics have been found in drinking water, seafood, and even human blood.

The problem is worst in developing countries where waste collection systems are inadequate, and in coastal areas where plastic waste flows directly into waterways. But even in wealthy countries, plastic pollution is everywhere: in agricultural soils, urban stormwater, and household dust.

We need both cleanup technology and prevention systems that stop plastic from entering the environment in the first place.

Food scraps, yard waste, and other organic materials make up about 30% of what we throw away. When this organic waste decomposes in landfills without oxygen, it produces methane — a greenhouse gas that's 25 times more potent than CO2.

This is a massive missed opportunity. Organic waste can be turned into valuable products: biogas for energy, compost for soil health, and even protein for animal feed. But most cities and businesses don't have the infrastructure to capture and process organic waste separately.

The challenge is building systems that can handle the logistics of collecting organic waste before it spoils, and processing it at the right scale for different communities and industries.

Electronic waste is the fastest-growing waste stream in the world, increasing by 3-4% every year. Smartphones, laptops, and other devices contain toxic materials like lead and mercury, but also valuable metals like gold, silver, and rare earth elements.

Most e-waste ends up in landfills or gets shipped to developing countries where it's processed unsafely, exposing workers and communities to toxic chemicals. Meanwhile, we're mining new materials for electronics when we could be recovering them from old devices.

The challenge is building systems that can safely disassemble complex electronics, recover valuable materials at high purity, and give devices second lives before they become waste.

Construction and demolition creates more waste than any other industry — about 40% of all solid waste globally. Most of this is concrete, wood, metal, and other materials that could be reused or recycled, but instead get trucked to landfills.

The problem is that construction moves fast and demolition is usually about speed and cost, not material recovery. Buildings get torn down with excavators instead of being carefully disassembled. Valuable materials like steel beams, hardwood flooring, and architectural elements end up buried under tons of concrete rubble.

We need systems that make it profitable to recover materials from construction sites, and design approaches that plan for disassembly from the beginning.