Fishy Filaments

Summary

Fishy Filaments has developed a fishing net recycling process that enables immediate use of net materials in 3D printing and injection moulding. In a global cleantech market there is growing interest in new solutions that help protect our shared oceans and coastal communities.

• Filament sold to over 200 customers in 20 countries
• Repeat customers now adding to product ranges
• Growing market for higher grade 3D printing materials
• Emerging international market for recycling tech for marine plastics

Idea

The EU estimates that just 1.5% of used fishing nets are recycled and has recently enabled new laws to try and increase that.

All commercial fishing in EU waters will be covered by those new laws by 2025 but the issue of waste nets is global.

Our company is recognised at a policy level as having potential to help meet those goals.

Market research suggests that an estimated 100,000 tonnes of nets are made every year globally from nylon that could be recycled using our process and technology.

Our proprietary fishing net recycling process fits in a standard shipping container and could enable commercial fleets or local stakeholders to manage their own net wastes, potentially at a profit, AND can provide a low carbon raw material from which new products can be made.

At our pilot plant in Newlyn, Cornwall, nylon is recovered from old nets and up-cycled to a grade that allows sale into both conventional injection moulding and 3D printing markets.

Since commercial launch in Jan 2019 around 2 tonnes of nets have been recycled and sold to over 200 customers in over 20 countries. Interiors, eyewear and prototyping are currently the largest repeat B2B consumers, but our Marine Nylon™ is a tough, versatile polymer and new ideas are coming in every week both from the UK and overseas.

Our technologies are designed to help fishing communities control their waste nets and build industrial resilience.

Team

Ian Falconer is the founder and currently the only full time employee of the company. He'll be looking to build his leadership team post-funding.

Ian's background is in raw material supply chain and innovation. His time on offshore oil rigs, running quarries and materials processing plants brings a practical, dirt-under-the-finger-nails approach to innovation and an understanding of real world operational challenges. As a mining analyst in The City he worked with smaller mining and energy companies to understand each one's potential, and specialised in so-called technology metals, whose markets are still rapidly evolving as their uses move towards a low carbon economy.

Fishy Filaments was born of the understanding that the world is made of 'stuff' and cannot be made sustainable without addressing the impact of the supply of that stuff. The benefit of decarbonising raw materials is felt all the way down the supply chain, so the capital employed in this area of industry can be really efficient in effecting global change.

Couple that understanding with the circular economy concept and we can lock in the carbon savings and even multiply them through each generation of raw material re-use. Its production and wealth creation, but now based on regeneration of both materials and environment rather than extraction and disposal.