This Toronto 28-year-old received a chunk of Amazon's $2B fund for her tech company
Amazon invested a portion of a $2-billion climate fund earlier this month in a company created by a 28-year-old Toronto scientist who turns food scraps into alternative plastics.
Luna Yu, CEO and founder of Genecis, says she dove into the bioplastics world at 22-years-old. At the time, her budget was dismal and approach was scrappy – but creative, as she put it.
“We went out to Canadian Tire and bought a couple of rice cookers, and then we actually retrofitted the rice cookers and made them into bioreactors ourselves,” Yu told CTV News Toronto.
The makeshift gadget she created as a fresh University of Toronto graduate emulated the aim of her company-to-be, Genecis.
“It’s super simple. It's almost like brewing beer, right? All you have to do is to actually feed food waste as a sort of energy source or food to bacteria,” Yu explained.
That bacteria consumes sugars and fatty acids from the organic waste. As it metabolizes, the bacteria converts food scraps into a biodegradable called Polyhydroxyalkanoate, or simpler, PHA.
A reactor growing PHA is photographed at the Genecis lab (Supplied). From there, PHA is extracted, purified and compounded into pellets, which are injected into molding machines to make an alternative to single-use plastics, like food and medical packaging.
“One product that we sort of experimented with launching ourselves last year is in a textile market,” Yu said. Instead of making polyester shirts out of traditional synthetic plastics, Yu uses PHA as a replacement.
With a chunk of Amazon’s $2 billion Climate Pledge Fund secured, Yu is aiming to integrate her sustainable, biodegradable alternative to plastic into Amazon’s supply chain.
Genecis employees working at the office lab (Supplied). She could not disclose the amount of money received. An Amazon spokesperson told CTV News Toronto the investment in Genecis came from the fund’s $50 million Female Founder Initiative, but could only confirm these investments range from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.
“That's going to be able to help us altogether amplify our overall impact, right? Because our goal in the next 10 years is to essentially make PHAs as ubiquitous as possible,” Yu said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
'Anything to win': Trudeau says as Poilievre defends meeting protesters
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of welcoming 'the support of conspiracy theorists and extremists,' after the Conservative leader was photographed meeting with protesters, which his office has defended.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Boeing's financial woes continue, while families of crash victims urge U.S. to prosecute the company
Boeing said Wednesday that it lost US$355 million on falling revenue in the first quarter, another sign of the crisis gripping the aircraft manufacturer as it faces increasing scrutiny over the safety of its planes and accusations of shoddy work from a growing number of whistleblowers.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
"It's a bit of a complicated pattern; we've got a lot going on," said Jennifer Smith of the Meteorological Service of Canada in an interview with CTVNews.ca on Wednesday. "[As is] typical with weather, all of these things are related."
Police tangle with students in Texas and California as wave of campus protest against Gaza war grows
Police tangled with student demonstrators in Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.