10 of the best firms at the forefront of the recycle, reuse, reduce drive revolution

We hold the planet’s future in our hands so the more we can do as consumers to protect it the better. Ilona Amos selects ten Scottish firms putting us on the road to redemption.

McCormack Innovation, Cluny, Kirkcaldy

This Fife biotech firm was set up by Brian McCormack, pictured left, a former coal miner turned inventor, to help tackle poor return rates for bowel or colorectal cancer screening programmes worldwide.

His solution was to create a disposable stool sample collection kit made from soluble material that can be safely flushed away after use.

The success of this endeavour led to the creation of easily removable, soluble wound dressings that can be used for burns patients and those with other ultrasensitive skin conditions.

Other innovations include eco-friendly wipes and cotton buds that dissolve in water and can be harmlessly disposed of

down the toilet.

Their medical wipes have achieved ‘Fine to Flush’ certification.

Revive Eco, Glasgow

About 55 million cups of coffee are drunk each day in the UK, generating more than half a million tonnes of coffee grounds which

usually end up binned.

Glasgow-based Revive Eco collects used coffee grounds from cafes, restaurants and offices across Scotland and turns them into high-value bio oils to be used as an alternative to palm oil in pharmaceuticals, including make-up, as well as in soil

improvers.

The firm’s mission is to radically change mindsets and show that materials can possess huge value even after being used for

their primary purpose.

IndiNature, Edinburgh

Scott Simpson and Sam Baumber, cofounders of IndiNature, have a vision to start a natural industrial revolution creating positive global impacts on the climate, communities and the environment by building bio-based construction systems on an industrial scale.

To fulfill this goal they have invented the high-performance IndiBreathe insulation system, which is 100 per cent plant-based and free from toxic chemicals and plastics.

The breathable material not only traps heat, it also stores climate-warming carbon, reduces risks of damp and mould

and improves indoor air quality. It’s also cheaper than its traditional equivalents, is easy to build with and can be used in any

type of building.

The concept has attracted a raft of awards and the crops used in its manufacture are grown in Scotland.

Beauty Kitchen, Wishaw

This Wishaw-based firm aims to be “the most sustainable business in the world”, encouraging others to “strive for the

same”.

In 2016, it became the first UK beauty brand to become a certified B Corporation – a business that balances purpose and profit. This means that the firm considers its impact on its staff, customers, suppliers, the wider community and the environment. Subsequently, Beauty Kitchen does not use microplastics, animal testing or synthetic ingredients.

The brand began with home-made skincare products. Since then it has become a high-street name. It has special dispensers set up in branches of Holland & Barrett and Boots, where customers can refill empty bottles of their favourite products.

Green Grow/Aurora Sustainability Group, Forres

An obsession with caring for the planet and letting nothing go to waste is fuelling innovation for this new “post-capitalist” business in the north-east of Scotland.

Green Grow produces high-quality vegan ready meals in a way that has the minimum possible impact on the environment and demonstrates the principles of a circular economy.

To do that, founders Iain Findlay and Isabella Guerrini capture the unused value in discarded agricultural residue – along

with brewers’ grains, sawdust and oat husks and waste heat from industrial processes such as brewing – to cultivate gourmet

oyster mushrooms.

The mushrooms, which are high in protein, fibre and micro-nutrients, can be grown in just six weeks. The leftover ‘soil’, which is entirely biodegradable, can also be re-used for other purposes – such as an eco-friendly alternative to polystyrene packaging.

Choose Water, Edinburgh

Chemistry graduate James Longcroft, pictured above, launched a not-for-profit bottled water firm in the Capital with the aim of ploughing all the profits made into a charity focused on providing clean drinking water to remote communities in Africa.

However, he soon realised that the product, although it was benefiting struggling villagers in some of the world’s poorest regions, was adding to an increasing blight on the environment.

After months of experiments at his kitchen table, he managed to create a novel bottle which, Longcroft believes, could revolutionise the industry.

Fully biodegradable, it is made from sustainable plant-based materials, uses no fossil fuels in its production and can actually

benefit wildlife and the landscape when it breaks down.

The plastic-free container decomposes within about three weeks in seawater, compared with hundreds – even thousands – of years for its plastic equivalent.

It can also be harmlessly eaten by sea creatures and can neutralise acidic soils.

Carbon Dynamic, Alness

This innovative Highland firm designs and manufactures eco-friendly timber modular buildings made from locally-sourced and sustainable materials at its factory in Invergordon, Ross and Cromarty.

Due to the off-site construction model employed, wastage on projects can be managed more effectively and off-cut materials re-used.

The structures, designed to a customer’s specification, arrive pre-built and so can be installed in a matter of days. They have

exceptional levels of insulation, and thus provide cost-effective, low-energy homes.

The firm, which was recently bought over by the Alness-based Pat Munro Group, has provided dwellings for the pioneering Social

Bite homeless village in Edinburgh, pictured above, and eco-village accommodation at the Findhorn Sands Holiday Park in Moray.

CuanTec, Motherwell

By extracting natural biopolymer chitin from prawn shells and other leftovers from fishery industry processes, this North Lanarkshire start-up firm has created compostable, antimicrobial packaging that reduces spoilage and extends the shelf life of food, simultaneously cutting plastic use and food waste.

CuanTec has already developed three prototype food packaging films and is

developing them rapidly.

The first commercial products will be aimed at the seafood industry, but then the offering will be expanded outwards for packaging for all kinds of foodstuffs.

Work is also under way at the firm to develop compostable single-use milk bottles for an eco-friendly dairy in Ayrshire.

Celtic Renewables, Edinburgh

This award-winning spin-out company from Edinburgh Napier University has developed a ground-breaking process that is set to

revolutionise sustainable transport.

Every year the Scotch whisky industry produces 1,600 million litres of pot ale – a copper-containing yeasty liquid left over

following distillation – and 500,000 tonnes of draff – sugar-rich kernels of barley which are soaked in water to facilitate fermentation.

Celtic Renewables has developed a way to convert this residue into biobutanol, which can directly replace petrol and diesel.

Switching to the new fuel cuts oil consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, while also providing energy security.

In a further eco-friendly boost, the novel process also produces other sustainable chemicals, such as acetone and ethanol, as

well as animal feed.

MacRebur, Lockerbie

MacRebur’s mission is to help solve two global problems – the waste plastic epidemic and the poor quality of roads around the

world.

The Lockerbie-based firm’s innovative solution involves processing waste plastics destined for landfill or incineration and

adding them to tar for road construction and surfacing to extend and enhance the traditional petroleum-based bitumen binder.

The equivalent weight of 684,000 plastic bottles, or 1.8 million single-use carrier bags, goes into each kilometre of road laid using MacRebur’s tar product.

MacRebur solution reduces use of fossil fuels and reuses waste plastic, leading to a reduction in carbon footprint and helping

make a circular economy go around.

Kenoteq, Edinburgh

This Scottish start-up, co-founded by HeriotWatt University engineering professor Gabriela Medero, has created a building brick made without raw materials.

Medero spent more than ten years developing the product, driven by a mission to reduce the environmental impact of the

construction industry.

The unfired K-Briqs are created from 90 per cent construction and demolition site waste – and generate less than one-tenth of the carbon emissions in their manufacture compared to traditional equivalents.

It looks like a normal brick, weighs the same and behaves as such, but offers better insulation properties and can be produced in any colour.

Currently up to 85 per cent of bricks used in Scotland are imported from England or Europe, racking up travel emissions. As

well as saving energy in the manufacturing process, Kenoteq cuts its carbon footprints by producing the bricks locally at a recycling centre near Edinburgh.

This article first appeared in the spring 2020 edition of The Scotsman’s Vision. A digital version can be found here.