ALT TEX, a startup working out of the University of Toronto Mississauga’s ICUBE accelerator and whose co-founders include alumna Avneet Ghotra, won first place and $10,000 for converting food waste into a biodegradable bio-plastic fiber that can be used in textile manufacturing.
The virtual pitch competition was open to ideas, projects, or startups that have received less than $25,000 in funding and investment. Their co-founders include at least one U of T student, post-doctoral researcher, or recent graduate. Myra Arshad, an ALT TEX co-founder and graduate of the Schulich School of Business at York University, said that fashion is one of the world’s most polluting industries – and that while the sustainable fashion industry is growing, there’s an important gap that ALT TEX is poised to fill.
ALT TEX’s novel fermentation process converts food waste into bio-plastic fiber that mimics polyester’s look and feels biodegradable. The company says a single shirt manufactured using its carbon-neutral fiber could help remove one kilogram of food waste from landfills, save nine kilograms of carbon emissions and save four kilograms of micro-plastic pollution.
John Robinson, presidential adviser on the environment, climate change and sustainability and one of four judges at the pitch competition, said, “There’s a ton of sustainability stuff that goes on at U of T that’s invisible – it’s under the floor, it’s behind the wall, or it’s in the meeting room or the classroom. It’s just not visible to anyone who isn’t directly involved. The idea of the celebration is to make that visible.”
The event marked the Adams Sustainability Celebration’s culmination organized by U of T’s Committee on the Environment, Climate Change and Sustainability (CECCS). Created with the help of a donation from Wendy Adams, the four-month-long initiative comprised a series of events that sought to celebrate sustainability successes, inspire ideas, foster collaborations and increase engagement around sustainability issues across U of T’s three campuses.
