The Company

Learn more about our mission and business case.

The Problem

Today end-of-life vehicle recycling follows three main steps:

Removing reusable parts
Shredding the car and recycling its metals
Incinerating or landfilling the remaining waste

This leftover material, known as automotive shredder residue or ASR, consists of metal fragments, crushed glass, and mixed plastics. ASR accounts for approximately 20% of a car’s materials by weight.

Because ASR is contaminated with heavy metals and multiple polymer types, separating and recycling it is virtually impossible using current technology. Which means ASR is being landfilled or incinerated alongside municipal solid waste. This is not only expensive, but also highly polluting and wasteful.

Our Solution

We developed a patented, breakthrough process in collaboration with some of the world’s top materials science research labs. This process enables us to effectively separate the three primary components of ASR: metals, minerals, and polymers. The recovered materials are of sufficiently high quality that they can recycled or upcycled to replace virgin raw materials in a wide range of manufacturing processes. This effectively unlocks a previously untapped resource stream that would otherwise be wasted through landfill or incineration.

We are also working with industry partners to adapt our solution for other challenging waste streams, such as electronic scrap and demolition waste plastics.

Our deployment approach for collaborations will be through modular micro-recycling centers that can be easily integrated (‘dropped-in’) at existing industrial sites where such waste is aggregated. This approach maximizes efficiency in logistics and resource use, making recycling as seamless and scalable as traditional waste disposal.

Our Technology

Our material separation process consists of three core steps:

Step 1 – Metal recovery

We first apply physical separation techniques—based on density, magnetism, and other material properties. Through these we isolate metals and ‘heavy metals’ and recover elements like steel, aluminum, and copper. These metals are sold to offtakers for reuse in manufacturing.

Step 2 – Mineral extraction

Using additional physical methods as well as some applications of fluid dynamics we extract mineral components from step 1 residue to get a glass byproduct that can be sold as a raw input for cement production. The residual matter at this point is largely hydrocarbon based.

Step 3 – Photolysis

In the final step we apply photolysis, a technology that replicates and accelerates the natural breakdown of hydrocarbons by sunlight. This process disintegrates the hydrocarbon residue into its fundamental building blocks: hydrogen and carbon molecules. These molecules can be utilized to produce new polymers, enabling us to bring some of the most polluting materials in car waste into the circular economy.

Our Plant

Our first dedicated recycling plant is currently under construction at the former Papierfabrik site in Biberist, Switzerland. The facility is being co-developed by HIAG and Canton Solothurn, and is expected to be in operation by late 2025.

Our Impact

Our solution supports UN SDG 13: Climate Action, by preventing up to 6.4 tonnes of CO2 emissions for every tonne of ASR we process. With a planned network capable of handling 20 million tonnes of waste annually within within 5 years, this translates into ~130 million tonnes of CO2 emissions avoided per year—equivalent to removing 25 million fossil-fuel vehicles from the roads.

In addition, we have the potential to process more than 80 million tonnes of other mixed plastic waste, diverting it from incineration or landfill. With this expansion, our total impact exceeds 500 million tonnes of CO2 emissions avoided per year.