Healthcare is awash in single-use plastics. In U.S. healthcare services alone, greater than 2,800 tons of plastic packaging and merchandise are thrown out day by day.
Few individuals are extra conscious of this than Eddie Yu. Early within the pandemic, Yu based an organization that made disposable masks. In the future, his niece was with him whereas he was sorting recycling, and he or she requested him whether or not his masks was additionally recyclable.
“I advised her that truly we will’t recycle the masks,” he advised TechCrunch. “She simply interrupted me and stated, ‘Oh, you then make a variety of trash day by day.’”
The little woman’s phrases caught with Yu, and after promoting the masks firm in 2021, he got down to make amends.
In an effort to tame healthcare’s single-use plastic downside, Yu’s new firm, Ökosix, has developed a brand new bio-based, biodegradable polymer. Ökosix is a part of Startup Battlefield, and it will likely be presenting at TechCrunch Disrupt later this month in San Francisco.
Ökosix blends numerous compounds, together with cellulose, chitosan derived from crustacean shells, wax, and a proprietary materials. The result’s cheaper than polylactic acid (PLA), a broadly used biodegradable plastic, with performance that’s “the identical and even higher than PLA,” Yu stated.
Amongst plastics, the time period “biodegradability” is commonly misused, Yu stated. Some require very particular circumstances to decompose, whereas others merely crumble into micro- or nanoplastics.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 27-29, 2025
“We’ve received worldwide certifications to show that the fabric is totally gone in six months,” Yu stated.
Ökosix is beginning with face masks, however it plans to additionally make surgical robes, diapers, and sanitary napkins, Yu stated. “We wish to use a secure materials, non-plastic, to exchange fossil plastics for disposable merchandise.”
Although the corporate has but to carry out a proper life cycle evaluation, Yu stated that Ökosix’s materials ought to have a carbon footprint that’s 90% decrease than that of polypropylene, a broadly used single-use plastic.
Ökosix sells its materials to 3rd events, which then flip it into numerous merchandise. “In the meanwhile, our enterprise mannequin is like Gore-Tex,” Yu stated. “We don’t make the completed merchandise, however we make the layer, we make the uncooked supplies, after which we work with corporations like 3M.” He added that branding might turn out to be a major a part of the enterprise, much like Gore-Tex.
The startup has raised $2.3 million, together with investments from the founders and different angel traders.
Hear extra from Ökosix and dozens of different startups firsthand, take part in worthwhile workshops, and make lasting connections at this 12 months’s Disrupt, going down October 27 to 29 in San Francisco.