Timeplast

Each week, the average person consumes the equivalent of a credit card’s worth of plastic.

If that doesn’t make your stomach turn, consider this: Every year, the world creates 760 billion pounds of plastic, creating a global market worth nearly $600 billion.

Yet plastic today is everywhere — in our landfills, our oceans, and even inside our bodies. The main problem is that most plastics aren’t dissolvable. But one early-stage startup has created a solution.

The startup is called Timeplast. And it’s created a material that can be used just like plastic, but disintegrates safely using just water. Even more impressive, this material can be programmed to transform itself from a water-resistant material to a water-soluble material after a certain period of time.

Timeplast - the name of both the material and the startup that created it - is marketed as a plastic-like material capable of dissolving in water. It comes in three raw forms: crystals, small, and large pellets.

The key to this material is the discovery of a chemical pathway that enables Timeplast to introduce a copolymerization level. This results in a material that is water resistant for a period of time and then becomes water soluble.

Timeplast can be “programmed” to feature water resistance for seconds, hours, or even a year. This is what enables it to be used to replace things like soda bottles and milk jugs.

Once the material dissolves, Timeplast breaks down into naturally-occurring low-weight molecules. Notably, it doesn’t leave any plastics behind at all.

Timeplast is made primarily by third-party manufacturers that specialize in chemical and bio-based materials. Eventually, the company aims to produce the material itself.

Under its current business model, raw materials are shipped to a compounder with Timeplast’s proprietary polymerization-inducing wax that creates the final product. For the final polymerization where the material is created, Timeplast uses its customers’ manufacturing systems to complete this energy-intensive task. This reduces costs and makes Timeplast cheaper than bio-based plastics on the market.

Timeplast will price its material between one and two dollars per pound. This is admittedly more expensive than conventional plastics at lower volumes, but competitive at higher ones. Additionally, this material can potentially replace metal, paper, and glass packaging. And compared to these materials, Timeplast is significantly cheaper to produce.

Timeplast has been certified by the American Society for Testing and Materials as being 100% water soluble. The company has been awarded four patents and established a global supply chain, including a factory in Florida where it can manufacture 100,000 metric tons of Timeplast a day.

Team Background

Tony Martinez - Global Operations Manager

Tony has more than twenty years of experience in the business-to-business sector, ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies.

He has been with Timeplast since 2017, and earned a degree in Business Administration from Florida International University.

Henry Aular - European Operations Manager

In addition to his role with Timeplast, Henry works at Simoparma Packaging, an Italy-based packaging company.

He earned a degree in Electrical Engineering from Ohio University.

Manuel Rendon - Founder & CEO

Manuel is the award-winning inventor who created and patented Timeplast.

His idea for the material stemmed from his time with PepsiCo, the beverage company, where he was the company’s National Environmental Coordinator. While there, he won a Best Practices Award.

He earned a degree in Environmental Engineering from Universidad del Tachira, located in Venezuela.

Co-Investors