2019年10月3日

A startup with the goal of 'eliminating single-use plastics in every Aussie kitchen, bathroom and laundry' has raised $60,000 in crowdfunding

An Australian startup, which wants to eliminate single-use plastics in laundry, bathroom and kitchen products, has already raised $60,000 on its first day of crowdfunding.Here’s the pitch: In the ‘starter pack’ offered by Zero Co, you get a series of colourful liquid dispensers which are made from recycled ocean plastics, as well as a matching set of refill pouches made from recycled landfill plastic. Included are your standard household products – multipurpose cleaning liquid, laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid, hand wash, and so on.

When you’re finished with your refill pouch, you send it back to Zero Co, which cleans and refills it, then sends it on to the next customer.After receiving $600,000 in pre-seed funding, the company launched its Kickstarter on Wednesday in order to secure $250,000 to fund its first production run. Within 45 minutes, the company had raised over $25,000.

“Just over 13,000 people signed up for our mailing list in that last month – so far that’s where all the traffic is coming from.”The starter pack costs $129, which the company says is comparable to an assortment of equivalent off-the-shelf brands.“Our mission here is to smash plastic,” he said, “so our goal is to never be more expensive than the massive brands.”

As technology advances and populations boom, global cities grow and change – here’s what the future holds

So, as technology advances and the population booms, there is a desperate need to ensure our cities are set up to support rapid growth and a realisation that our governments and industries need to keep up with the pace.

Recognising the increased collaboration across industries and the blurring of lines between different sectors of the economy, the Commonwealth Bank recently realigned its Institutional Banking and Markets division into ecosystems. This ecosystem model has allowed the Bank to look at the interdependencies between different corporations and industries and provide a more holistic service offering.This is particularly important for Commonwealth Bank’s future cities ecosystem where the interdependencies between corporations and the surrounding corporations are so critical to the operating efficiency, liveability, and amenity of our growing metropolises. By bringing together industries such as real estate, social and economic infrastructure along with sustainable finance, Commonwealth Bank seeks to provide a proactive platform for cooperation and collaboration for the major players and interconnected corporations, which are critical to the development of our cities.

The ecosystem approach means the Bank can better support co-dependent industries across property, infrastructure and technology. We’re very keen to be associated with financing the development of commercial real estate, residential real estate, economic infrastructure, and social infrastructure, but also looking at projects through the lens of social and affordable housing and other elements that bring the whole of city life together.

“By 2033, our population will have grown by 6 million. How can we accommodate that? The challenge is huge. We’re playing catch up with infrastructure.” At the moment, there are 31 mega-cities in the world and by 2050, there are going to be 41 cities in the world with a population of 10 million or more. At least 90% of this growth will be seen in Asia and Africa.

A new Aussie plant-based meat startup has launched, backed by the CSIRO

Australian plant-based meat startup v2food launched in Sydney on Tuesday, a partnership between the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Main Sequence Ventures and Jack Cowin’s, Competitive Foods Australia – the group behind Hungry Jack’s.

Hazell said the main ingredients of v2foods are legumes, sunflower oil and coconut fat. He added that the startup wants to appeal to meat eaters. “We want meat eaters to have a choice to say okay, today, we’re going to still cook spag bol or chilli con [carne] or have a burger, but it’s going to be with v2.”

So you can turn grain into protein and you can make it taste good. It may not be exactly the same, but if you make it taste good, then we have a more efficient way of making protein. The team is building a $20 million plant, which is set to produce plant-based meat.

The plant-based meat market is set to be worth more than $6 billion by 2030 in Australia. From an Australian meat industry perspective, this is an opportunity to double, triple, quadruple what we make in Australia to export to the world. v2food is set to appear in restaurants and cafes before the end of the 2019, and aims to have a presence in-stores by early 2020.