Start-Up We Are Galaktika

We Are Galaktika

The female-led start-up We Are Galaktika from Germany has developed a resource-efficient chemical recycling technology for end-of-life silicones and is thereby tackling one of the most pressing but underestimated environmental problems of our society. Their innovative technology allows the use of end-of-life silicones as alternative feedstock for new high-quality silicones, thus contributing to a circular economy, saving energy and resources, while also having a beneficial carbon footprint balance. For these reasons, We Are Galaktika not only won our ISC3 Innovation Challenge 2022, but has also been chosen as the ISC3 Start-up of the month for January 2023.

Year of Foundation:

2021

Addresses the following SDGs:

SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), SDG 12 (Responsible Production and Consumption), SDG 13 (Climate Action)

We Are Galaktika

man with a slight smile looking into the camera — Stephan Enthaler

woman with short hair smiling in the camera — Tina Rose

The “magical” match

We Are Galaktika began in 2021 with the concept of creating a zero-waste, circular menstrual cup. Because the market for menstrual cups was already saturated, the co-founders, Tina Rose and Klara Yoon, realised that if they wanted to have a unique selling point in those markets, they needed a pivot to make it somehow special. The goal was to develop a zero-waste and circular solution.

“If you want to make a truly sustainable period product, you have to take back the product when it has reached end-of-life”

, Klara remarked. So, they started to look for a scientist with experience in the field of silicone recycling, as Tina has a background in business development and Klara in media. That's how they found the third co-founder Stephan Enthaler, who is a scientist in the field of chemical recycling at the University of Hamburg. He has been working on chemical recycling of end-of-life silicones and searched for the right people and business model to bring the technology to the market. Only with Klara and Tina came the perfect match, as they also shared the same values regarding the social and environmental aspects of the business model. Later on, We Are Galaktika won the competition “Circular Together” and joined the incubator programme of Impact Hub Berlin in March 2022. They realised along the way that the menstrual cup is a nice project and product, but it will not have the desired impact. As a result, the start-up decided to go B2B and offer recycled silicone for a variety of products, not just menstrual cups.

“Our driver was always to save CO2 emissions compared to the merchant silicone. And this, we can only do if we produce in quantities and the menstrual cup does not have the quantity to make a difference,”

Tina stated.

Unique process for silicone recycling

What distinguishes the We Are Galaktika technology? Their chemical process enables recycling silicone in a way that ensures the same or even higher quality than virgin silicone. The product is a transparent silicone devoid of all additives, including colours. For the time being, they are unable to recycle the remaining additives such as pigments due to high costs, but the long-term goal is to completely close the material cycle and be able to recycle everything. Compared to the virgin silicone and other silicone recycling processes, during We Are Galaktika`s process the silicone doesn't lose any value. In addition, it requires a lot less energy than the production of virgin silicone, as they are able to operate at low temperature in a short timeframe, resulting in a more cost-effective process than the status-quo. For the moment, the start-up collects post-industrial wastes, the waste from silicone items production. The goal is to collect silicone waste with partners and recycle in the planned pilot plant and then return the recycled silicone back to the producer. That is We Are Galaktika’s business model for now. At a later stage, when they succeed with the pilot plant and move to the first commercial plant, they also plan to licence the technology because they don't aim to run or build recycling plants all over the globe. The idea is to licence it to other producers, as their main driver is to cut off or save as much CO2 emissions as possible and to be able to do so faster. “

The only way is to get other people on board,”

Klara added.

Next up at We are Galaktika

The immediate vision is to design and build the pilot plant. Lately, We Are Galaktika finalised the lab process which was submitted for patent application at the end of 2022. They are currently raising money for building the pilot plant and then run, operate, and test it with the waste from partners. As mentioned above, the first step would be to handle the post-industrial waste. The long-term goal is to have recycled silicone in households and recycling plants operating globally. With their innovative recycling technology for silicones, We Are Galaktika, who won the ISC3 Innovation Challenge 2022, contributes to SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), SDG 12 (Responsible Production and Consumption) and SDG 13 (Climate Action).

We Are Galaktika

Innovative silicone recycling technology

We Are Galaktika

Year of Foundation:

Addresses the following SDGs:

The “magical” match

Unique process for silicone recycling

Next up at We are Galaktika

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