Plastic waste is an enormous environmental challenge – we’re getting better at using less, and at recycling, but there’s still a huge amount of plastic produced and disposed of every year. But an Australian company, backed by the CSIRO, might have just solved this problem using – of all things – seaweed.
Michael Kingsbury, co-founder and co-CEO of ULUU, talks to Sean Aylmer about the science behind the company, and the future of the business, having already raised $8 million in funding with some big celebrity backers.
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Sean Aylmer: Welcome to the Fear and Greed daily interview. I’m Sean Aylmer. One of the big environmental challenges we
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Sean Aylmer: face is our addiction to plastics. We’re getting better at
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Sean Aylmer: recycling and at using less plastic in the first place,
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Sean Aylmer: but now an Australian company has come up with a
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Sean Aylmer: plastic substitute. ULUU is backed by the CSIRO, partners with
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Sean Aylmer: Deacon University, and last year raised $ 8 million in funding
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Sean Aylmer: with some big celebrity backers. And the best part, this
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Sean Aylmer: plastic alternative is made from seaweed, making it carbon negative.
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Sean Aylmer: Michael Kingsbury is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of ULUU, U-L-U-U, ULUU. Michael,
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Sean Aylmer: welcome to Fear and Greed.
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Michael Kingsbury: Ah, no, thanks for having me, Sean.
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Sean Aylmer: So tell me, where did the idea come from?
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Michael Kingsbury: Yeah, so the idea really, so Julia, who is my co-founder,
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Michael Kingsbury: it was really her idea back in 2019. So she’s
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Michael Kingsbury: an oceanographer and marine scientist, has a lot of experience
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Michael Kingsbury: with understanding the impacts and causes of plastic pollution, and
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Michael Kingsbury: she was really looking for an alternative to plastics. So
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Michael Kingsbury: there’s really no compelling alternative to fossil fuel-based plastics today.
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Michael Kingsbury: You have issues with the feed stocks that are used.
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Michael Kingsbury: You need a carbon source to produce materials, many of
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Michael Kingsbury: those that today exist are from land crops, things like cornstarch,
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Michael Kingsbury: and the materials have issues around their properties. So yeah,
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Michael Kingsbury: it was really joining these two things, using seaweed as, what
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Michael Kingsbury: we believe to be the most sustainable, scalable feedstock to allow
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Michael Kingsbury: us to replace the 400 million tons of fossil fuel-based
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Michael Kingsbury: plastics today, in combination with a special group of polymers
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Michael Kingsbury: called PHAs (polyhydroxy acids), which are produced by microorganisms like brewing beer.
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Michael Kingsbury: It’s through fermentation, but we’re brewing an alternative to plastic.
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Michael Kingsbury: They are home compostable and will also biodegrade if they
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Michael Kingsbury: happen to get into the ocean, but they have this
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Michael Kingsbury: very special, unique superpower in that they actually behave like
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Michael Kingsbury: plastics today. So they repel water, have good oxygen, moisture
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Michael Kingsbury: barrier properties, they’re lightweight, durable, et cetera. So they have
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Michael Kingsbury: all the things you like about plastic, but they’re uniquely
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Michael Kingsbury: compostable at the end of their life.
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Sean Aylmer: Okay. Can I ask, this is science to me, and
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Sean Aylmer: it is totally science to everyone, I suppose, who discovered
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Sean Aylmer: it? How do you come up with that idea, Julia
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Sean Aylmer: or you?
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Michael Kingsbury: The concept, yeah, it’s really Julia’s. I think it’s a
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Michael Kingsbury: mixture of her background in marine science and work in
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Michael Kingsbury: seaweeds in the past, in combination with really looking at
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Michael Kingsbury: all the different options out there. So we’re really mission-
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Michael Kingsbury: driven start to replace plastic, and there are very few
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Michael Kingsbury: alternatives out there. So looking at the literature, scientific literature,
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Michael Kingsbury: what’s on the market, and I guess intuitively joining the
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Michael Kingsbury: dots between what is a feedstock that doesn’t compete with arable land
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Michael Kingsbury: for food production. Seaweed is a marine crop that you
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Michael Kingsbury: can grow at scale, and actually, if it’s growing in
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Michael Kingsbury: the right way, can have benefits for the environment in that it
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Michael Kingsbury: bioremediates nutrient pollution, it sucks down lots of carbon.
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Sean Aylmer: Yeah, that just explain that, I didn’t realise that seaweed farms
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Sean Aylmer: actually offset more carbon than they emit. Is that what
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Sean Aylmer: you’re saying?
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Michael Kingsbury: Yeah. Seaweeds are an amazing plant. It grows very quickly.
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Michael Kingsbury: It absorbs a lot of carbon from the environment. And
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Michael Kingsbury: as it grows, parts of that biomass actually get shed
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Michael Kingsbury: into the water and can be sequestered in ocean sediments.
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Michael Kingsbury: So where it becomes ultimately the fossil fuel for the
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Michael Kingsbury: future. So yeah, it’s a great source of blue carbon,
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Michael Kingsbury: which you may have heard of.
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Sean Aylmer: Okay, so that’s the science behind it. What are the
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Sean Aylmer: potential uses? Is it something that we could end up
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Sean Aylmer: putting our groceries in the future, or is it more
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Sean Aylmer: of a heavy industry option? What are its uses?
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Michael Kingsbury: Yeah, so the types of materials that we’re producing, technically they’re
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Michael Kingsbury: called PHAs, again, produced from fermentation. They’re very versatile. So
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Michael Kingsbury: our product is a pellet, and pellets are the things
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Michael Kingsbury: that are kind of the commodity that brands that manufacture today,
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Michael Kingsbury: purchase and melt down and injection mold into rigid applications
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Michael Kingsbury: like car interiors or water bottles or furniture. They can
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Michael Kingsbury: extrude them into fibers to replace things like polyester. Your
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Michael Kingsbury: lots of textiles are synthetic, made of plastics. So in
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Michael Kingsbury: that same way we produce pellets that are plug and
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Michael Kingsbury: play with existing manufacturing equipment and have that versatility to
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Michael Kingsbury: be applied for injection molding applications through to fibers. So
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Michael Kingsbury: quite a versatile thing. And yeah, today there’s 400 million
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Michael Kingsbury: tons of pellets produced every year, all derived from fossil fuels.
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Sean Aylmer: Okay. Is it economic yet?
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Michael Kingsbury: Yeah, so we think seaweed in combinations with some innovations
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Michael Kingsbury: in our production process provide us with a process that
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Michael Kingsbury: can be cheaper than others and has the potential to
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Michael Kingsbury: ultimately compete with conventional plastics on price. We’re still more
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Michael Kingsbury: expensive than obviously PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) and polypropylene today, which are around
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Michael Kingsbury: one to $3 per kilogram, but we think we have a very clear
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Michael Kingsbury: path to getting to cost parity. I would say brands
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Michael Kingsbury: and certain markets that we’re targeting, so initially cosmetics, so
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Michael Kingsbury: containers for things like your hand creams, skincare, they’re willing
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Michael Kingsbury: to pay a premium for our pellets, which does make
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Michael Kingsbury: us economic today, even despite being more expensive than commodity-based plastics.
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Sean Aylmer: Stay with me, Michael. We’ll be back in a minute.
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Sean Aylmer: I’m speaking to Michael Kingsbury, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of ULUU. Okay.
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Sean Aylmer: Now you’ve been supported by Main Sequence, which is the CSIRO’s
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Sean Aylmer: Innovation Fund. How important has that been?
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Michael Kingsbury: Yeah, incredibly important. Main Sequence, and we have a partner
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Michael Kingsbury: there, Phil Morle, who’s now a director of ULUU, have
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Michael Kingsbury: been absolutely fantastic and really pushing us to grow our
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Michael Kingsbury: ambition and ultimately believe in the mission that we can
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Michael Kingsbury: replace fossil fuel- based plastic. So Phil’s been very critical to
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Michael Kingsbury: where we are so far.
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Sean Aylmer: He’s a believer. And you’ve had celebrity backers too, musicians,
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Sean Aylmer: chefs, models, all getting on board. I imagine, I mean it
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Sean Aylmer: helps financially, obviously, but it also probably opens some doors
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Sean Aylmer: too, the power of celebrity?
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Michael Kingsbury: Yeah, I think, we have a very compelling story. We
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Michael Kingsbury: want ULUU, ultimately, to be a global brand as well, one
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Michael Kingsbury: that businesses are proud to show that their products are
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Michael Kingsbury: made with ULUU and that consumers are demanding that the
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Michael Kingsbury: products that they purchase are made from ULUU. So we see this
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Michael Kingsbury: consumer angle in the role of cultural leaders that they can
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Michael Kingsbury: play in building our brand awareness and building excitement in
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Michael Kingsbury: the market and really waiting for, I guess, keeping our
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Michael Kingsbury: powder dry with some of these influential investors and be
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Michael Kingsbury: looking to, I guess, activate the use of ULUU in certain
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Michael Kingsbury: events and things like that in the future. So yeah,
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Michael Kingsbury: kind of watch the space for that.
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Sean Aylmer: Okay. So what are the next steps, Michael Kingsbury from
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Sean Aylmer: ULUU? What are the next steps?
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Michael Kingsbury: Right now we are commissioning or have commissioned a pilot
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Michael Kingsbury: plant here in Watermans Bay, where our focus is really
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Michael Kingsbury: on product development. So taking our materials and ensuring that they’re
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Michael Kingsbury: fit for use with customers and going through trials with
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Michael Kingsbury: customers. So we need kilograms of our material to do
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Michael Kingsbury: those. And then working with them to lock in offtake agreements, which would,
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Michael Kingsbury: we can use that future revenue to secure financing or
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Michael Kingsbury: underwrite debt for a plant towards the end of next
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Michael Kingsbury: year. That can scale up to around a hundred tons,
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Michael Kingsbury: so it’s a demo plant in Indonesia next year, which
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Michael Kingsbury: is where we currently purchase our seaweed from. So that’s
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Michael Kingsbury: really what our focus is on right now, producing as
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Michael Kingsbury: much of this material as we can to lock in
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Michael Kingsbury: offtake agreements with customers.
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Sean Aylmer: What’s the long- term goal? I mean, you’ve sort of
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Sean Aylmer: told us throughout this interview, in a sense you’ve answered
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Sean Aylmer: this question already, but give me two answers, give me
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Sean Aylmer: utopia, but also give me where you think you’ll be
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Sean Aylmer: in five years time?
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Michael Kingsbury: Yeah, sure. So ultimately, we believe that we can replace
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Michael Kingsbury: fossil fuel- based plastics today with all the natural polymers derived
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Michael Kingsbury: from seaweed. The utopia situation is where currently you have
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Michael Kingsbury: recycling, we think recycling as well as composting, more importantly,
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Michael Kingsbury: is a great end- of- life solution to materials where we
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Michael Kingsbury: can return them to nature. And we think that you
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Michael Kingsbury: could treat your materials in the same way that you
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Michael Kingsbury: treat in food waste, where you can put them in
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Michael Kingsbury: your home compost or community compost and get rid of
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Michael Kingsbury: your material waste and food waste together, which would solve
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Michael Kingsbury: all sorts of issues.
So that’s really, I guess, the
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Michael Kingsbury: utopia is to replace plastic with ULUU. And then in
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Michael Kingsbury: the next five years, we hope to move from a
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Michael Kingsbury: demonstration plant, which would be online next year, really taking
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Michael Kingsbury: what we’ve done currently at pilot, which is hacking together
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Michael Kingsbury: lots of equipment off- the- shelf, and then actually taking
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Michael Kingsbury: that to a fully automated integrated plant next year. And
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Michael Kingsbury: then towards a large commercial facility in 2026, producing around
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Michael Kingsbury: 10,000 tons of our materials every year, which is really
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Michael Kingsbury: when we then start to generate impacts at scale, and
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Michael Kingsbury: you’ll see ULUU kind of in the mainstream.
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Sean Aylmer: Okay. Just quickly, you mentioned Indonesia before, I mean, Joko
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Sean Aylmer: Widodo has certainly been talking about putting money towards green
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Sean Aylmer: manufacturing and green products. Is this all part of that
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Sean Aylmer: or no? It’s a little bit of an aside question here, Michael.
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Michael Kingsbury: Yeah, no, that’s a great question. So yeah, Indonesia’s the
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Michael Kingsbury: world’s second- largest producer of seaweed. It’s a market that
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Michael Kingsbury: we can tap into readily. We have strong partners on
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Michael Kingsbury: the ground there. And there the government and Joko Widodo
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Michael Kingsbury: is very excited about growing the seaweed industry, not just
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Michael Kingsbury: in terms of production of raw materials, but also value-
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Michael Kingsbury: added processing. So actually setting up PHA plants in Indonesia
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Michael Kingsbury: where we take that seaweed and convert it into materials
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Michael Kingsbury: is very attractive for the Indonesian government and building jobs
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Michael Kingsbury: within coastal communities. And yeah, really, I guess ensuring that
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Michael Kingsbury: that value stays in Indonesia is quite exciting.
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Sean Aylmer: Final question. Where’s the name, ULUU, U- L- U- U,
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Sean Aylmer: UL double U, come from?
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Michael Kingsbury: Yeah, I don’t know, one morning we just thought of
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Michael Kingsbury: it. And I think subconsciously it was influenced by, there’s
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Michael Kingsbury: a surfing spot that I like in Indonesia called Uluwatu in Bali
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Michael Kingsbury: there. And it just had this nice natural sounding feel
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Michael Kingsbury: to it. It was succinct, like four letters. There’s nothing
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Michael Kingsbury: else like that in the world. So when you type in ULUU
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Michael Kingsbury: into Google, you essentially stumble across us. And yeah, it
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Michael Kingsbury: wasn’t trademarked, there was no domain name taken, so it made sense. It
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Michael Kingsbury: feels good.
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Sean Aylmer: Fantastic. Michael, thank you for talking to Fear and Greed.
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Michael Kingsbury: Thanks a lot for having me.
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Sean Aylmer: That was Michael Kingsbury, co- founder and co- CEO of
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Sean Aylmer: ULUU. This is the Fear and Greed daily interview. Join
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Sean Aylmer: us every morning for the full episode of Fear and
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Sean Aylmer: Greed, Australia’s most popular business podcast. I’m Sean Aylmer. Enjoy
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Sean Aylmer: your day.