The Lasso system is being created to provide households and businesses with a recycling system that delivers the service we all expect. Our soon to be completed appliance prototype shows that we do have the power to change recycling for good.
By 2023 the Lasso domestic recycling appliance will provide its first purchasers with a machine that ensures that their key used-materials are 100% closed-loop recycled. Glass, metal, PET and HDPE plastic containers can all be sorted, cleaned, compacted and stored in your home ready for collection. The pure products created by the appliance will be delivered to manufacturers to be used in new containers.
When recycling, the greatest CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions savings are realised when the recycled container is reused multiple times. A glass bottle, for example, can be closed-loop recycled an infinite number of times if the system processes it correctly. Making a new glass bottle from closed-loop recycled materials reduces the CO2e by 58% compared to virgin materials.
One hundred percent (100%) of the materials accepted into the Lasso appliance will be closed-loop recycled, delivering CO2e savings and cutting out waste and pollution. The Lasso system will process;
- 20-30% of the total household waste stream,
- 70-80% of the current potential recyclable value of the household’s used-materials.
This is not what takes place in the current recycling system where the bulk of your recyclable used-materials are sent to landfill:
- 74% of your PET plastic,
- 68% of your glass, and
- 44% of your metal containers are sent to landfill or waste to energy.
Today just six 6% of PET plastic and 23% of glass containers are closed-loop recycled.
In an effective recycling system these recyclable used-materials would be remade into new containers saving CO2e and reducing the need for more virgin materials.
A lot of the current recycling is actually downcycled into a product of lesser value. For example, a glass bottle becomes road base or a plastic bottle is used to make packaging tape.
You are not at fault. This is a system design issue. Your co-mingled recycling bin mixes all the recyclable used-materials together. The recycling facility cannot cost-effectively separate and sort the mixed used-materials into types: PET and HDPE plastic, glass by colour and different metals. To turn your household used-materials into raw materials for new containers a high level of purity is required, especially for food grade containers. It is too expensive to achieve this purity in the current system and that’s why the current closed-loop recycling rates remain so low.
It is not for lack of trying. The recycling industry has spent more than twenty years and billions of taxpayers’ dollars attempting to solve this sorting problem and increase recycling rates. Some regions have adopted a separated recycling system where households have multiple recycling bins for each material type. Sorting the used-materials in this system remains an issue as the recycling collection and recycling facility often rely on co-mingled material processing to lower costs.
So the recycling industry continues to rely heavily on co-mingled recycling and most recycling facilities currently produce low quality downcycled materials. The current system wastes a lot of the valuable used-materials collected from our homes.
This is why our founder Aldous Hicks designed a new recycling system that delivers the recycling we all expect. Lasso achieves 100% closed-loop recycling by keeping the recyclable used-materials separate from the beginning, cleaning them, compacting them, and storing them separately. The Lasso appliance produces pure recycled products that are ready to be used to make new containers, lowering CO2e, and preventing waste and pollution.
If you would like a recycling service that actually recycles, please join our growing Lasso community. You can reserve your Lasso appliance now. This reservation is not a contract that locks you into payment. Instead, it registers your commitment to the project and helps us to show potential investors the level of interest and where the first rollout would be most practical. In the future we hope to offer a leasing model so that everyone can access a Lasso appliance. Together we really can change recycling for good.
