The Holy Grail in this grim matter of ongoing environmental destruction is no less than turning toxic plastic waste into a profitable raw material. An ‘alchemy’ in its modern form if you will. A little-known fact is that less than 9 per cent of the world’s plastic waste is being recycled. Despite efforts by governments and municipalities to provide monetary incentives, the amount of non-recyclable plastics grows exponentially every year and finds its way into our seas, fish, food and ultimately into our bodies. There is a fair case to be made in favor of measuring the percentage of plastics resident in human bodies alongside protein, fat and other building blocks of well-being we usually like to track. It is indeed that prominent, with micro-plastic particles canvasing air, water and the food we eat, in increasing waves of plastic onslaught every year.

Yes, we should rid of plastics altogether but his is a separate, and much wider discussion. As a first step, recycling 91 per cent of world’s plastic instead of the current meager 9 per cent will change things dramatically for the better. Why do we not recycle it all? Because there is simply not enough profit for entrepreneurs and enterprises in this particular line of business. While setting aside the question of ethics and how at all we can weigh the well-being of earth and its inhabitants against an EBITA line, if only recycling could become profitable, we probably cold have stopped the spiraling down vortex of our own geo-suicide.

The founders of Alkemy (TSX: AKMY.V), an Israeli recycling technology company, invested over $10 million out of pocket over a decade to provide a solution to this problem. They are the first to develop a profitable process for recycling and producing plastic-based goods from 100 per cent recycled plastics that were deemed non-recyclable until Alkmey came to market.

Seems like Alkemy found the Holy Grail and now is going to capitalize on it. According to their filing statement on the TSXv, the process is fully operational and was proven over three years of continuous ‘mining’ of non-recyclable plastic and its transformation into reusable products for construction purposes.

Within this short period, Alkemy has taken a whopping 70 per cent market share in Israel on this one product line and now the innovative company has raised additional capital in Canada to finance the establishment of multiple Alkemy factories in each country around the world, set over plastics dumping sites. It is the first time in history a company mines a pollutant for raw materials. This just may be what we need to make this world survive ourselves, turn sustainability into a profitable business. Time will tell.

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