Recycling and sustainability are big challenges today, especially with plastics and materials science. Our recycling systems are flawed, and many people aren't aware of the issues, making environmental problems worse.

Dr. Kristoffer Stokes and his team at Geisys Ventures are tackling these problems head-on with innovative solutions for plastics and manufacturing. Their cutting-edge technology, D-glue, makes it easier to recycle and repair products made from mixed materials.

In this episode, we talk about the hurdles in recycling, how Geisys Ventures is addressing them, and the importance of reducing consumption and fixing products. Dr. Stokes also shares success stories and advises anyone wanting to make a positive impact on the environment.

🎧 Listen or watch the episode

👤 Interview with Dr. Kristoffer Stokes

Dunja Jovanovic: Can you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your company, Geisys Ventures?

Kristoffer Stokes: I'm Dr. Kris Stokes, the principal scientist at Geisys Ventures. We focus on material science, including R&D management consulting to accelerate product development, manufacturing process improvements, and R&D product development. My background is in polymer chemistry. I hold a PhD from MIT and previously worked at a startup company in the oil and gas chemical sector, which had a successful exit. I've also worked at a company manufacturing battery components and served as the global director of product development for an adhesive company.

DJ: What inspired you to start Geisys Ventures, and what specific problems are you aiming to solve?

KS: We focus on solving issues with plastics and plastics manufacturing. We're working on projects that improve sustainable products, such as recycling party cups into new fibers and collaborating with medical device companies. Our main focus is on addressing plastics processing issues.

DJ: What do you see as the main limitations in the current recycling infrastructure for plastics?

KS: The current recycling infrastructure has a few issues. Firstly, our collection systems aren't optimal. For example, in my town, we have free recycling for plastics and metals, but people don't always know what materials are acceptable, leading to mixed recycling. This mix complicates the process because only certain types of plastics, like numbers 1 and 2, are meant to be recycled, yet all numbered plastics get dumped in. Secondly, aiming for a circular economy is challenging due to our current manufacturing processes. In the adhesives world, for example, glue is used extensively to reduce labor, increase product longevity, and for light-weighting. These factors make recycling difficult.

DJ: Do you think we need more education on recycling plastics? People often assume all plastics can be recycled. How do product design and material selection by manufacturers affect recyclability?

KS: Absolutely. A great example is Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Each chocolate is wrapped in foil with a sticker, placed in a cup with hot glue, then packaged in thermoformed plastic, and finally in a hard plastic case. This excessive, mixed-material packaging complicates recycling.

DJ: So, when people want to recycle Ferrero Rocher packaging, they might not realize each part should be recycled differently, and some parts aren't recyclable at all.

KS: Exactly. Most of it should probably go in the trash because many areas, like my town, don't accept polypropylene.

DJ: You get a small tasty dessert, but it comes with a lot of unnecessary packaging that isn't recyclable and ends up in a landfill. We should be more environmentally conscious while enjoying our treats, right?

KS: Absolutely. We need to find ways to have our cake and eat it too.

DJ: You're working in the adhesive industry. What solutions are you offering to improve this situation?

KS: While at the adhesives company, a large customer repeatedly asked for a defleatable adhesive. Traditional adhesives don’t allow for easy disassembly and recycling. In 2020, during the pandemic, I collaborated with my college friend, Professor Phil Costanzo at Cal Poly, who was working on reheatable coatings. We repurposed this technology to create a new glue, D-glue, which can be de-bonded at the end of its life to recover valuable materials.

DJ: You mentioned using glue in products like shoes or electronics. How does your adhesive enable manufacturers to recycle their products?

KS: Our adhesive technology allows for easy disassembly, aiding in manufacturing rework, repair, and recycling. It's especially important for mixed materials, which are challenging to recycle. Right to repair is a growing area, and our adhesive can support this market by allowing for easier disassembly and recycling of mixed material products.

DJ: Is your product on the market yet? Can companies buy and use it?

KS: We're currently at the proof of concept stage, working with large companies to scale up and commercialize D-glue. We're also fundraising to spin out the company and bring the product to market because we believe in its potential.

DJ: How significant is consumer behavior in recycling, and what strategies can encourage more effective recycling habits?

KS: Consumer behavior is crucial. Over the past 50 years, we've been trained to use and dispose of products quickly. Increasing awareness of repairable and sustainable products, demanding legislation, and holding companies accountable are essential. Consumers need to push for products that can be repaired and recycled. Every company wants to sell more products, but we need to shift towards sustainability.

DJ: What impact do government policies and incentives have on recycling rates?

KS: Government regulation is essential. Europe has been leading sustainability efforts for years, and the US often follows suit due to market shifts. Economic incentives for using recycled materials are needed. For example, recycled polyester costs 30% more than virgin materials, creating a disincentive to use recycled materials.

DJ: Recycling rates vary between regions. What lessons can be learned from areas with high recycling rates?

KS: When I lived in Denmark in 2000, one of the things that really impressed me was the practice of reusing bottles. Every beer bottle was made of thick, durable plastic. After use, you'd return the bottles to the store, and they would be reused. These bottles often had scuff marks, a sign of their repeated use. As consumers, we need to become more accepting of minor cosmetic defects. Of course, we shouldn't tolerate issues like leaking bottles or chemical leaching, but we should embrace the idea of reusing items whenever possible.

DJ: Do you have any success stories from Geisys Ventures that contributed to clients' sustainability journeys?

KS: We've worked with New Norm Fabrics on recycling materials. Lauren Choi, who is enthusiastic about sustainable solutions, has been pushing her recycled party cup textiles. We've been collaborating for a year, and she recently launched her shop with apparel made from these textiles.

DJ: What advice would you give to entrepreneurs focusing on sustainability, repair, recycling, and the circular economy?

KS: Persistence is key. The sustainable world has many starts and stops. My colleague Phil and I have been applying for funding and government grants for almost four years. This isn't a quick process like software development; it takes time, effort, and some luck. Keep at it; you're doing the right thing.

DJ: How important is marketing in this process?

KS: Marketing is crucial. You need to simplify your technology to its core essence and have a compelling demo. We're working on creating a compelling demo to capture attention. Simplify the technology so everyone can understand it, even if it's complex.

DJ: What motivates you to continue working in the field of sustainability?

KS: It's a personal motivation. My past work in the oil and gas field made me feel a sense of responsibility to contribute to sustainability. With four kids, I want to leave a better world for them. Despite the vilification of plastics, I believe technical solutions can help us move forward.

DJ: What advice would you give to everyday people who want to make environmentally conscious choices regarding repairs and recycling of plastics and textiles?

KS: The first piece of advice I give people is to reduce their consumption. We should all be mindful of how much we consume and try to cut back wherever possible. I admit I struggle with this too, but I make an effort to be aware of my consumption habits and reduce them as much as I can. Another key point is to repair your belongings. Keep them maintained and in good working order so they last longer. For example, my 15-year-old son recently got excited about this. His Xbox controller broke, and instead of discarding it, we found a tutorial online and he learned how to fix it himself.

📝 Full episode transcript

Hello friends! You are watching a brand new episode of the Green New Perspective Podcast, a place we created with the hope to get you interested in learning more about technologies or products that are being developed with the aim of combating climate change. The focus of today's episode is on recycling and reusing. My guest today is Dr. Kristoffer Stokes, who developed an innovative adhesive that could definitely help in ramping up recycling rates and promoting circular economy. Enjoy!

Hi Kris and welcome to the Green New Perspective podcast. Hi there, thanks for inviting me. So my first question for all of my guests and we will be the same as well, like can you introduce yourself and tell me and the audience a bit more about your company Geysis Venture? Absolutely. So I'm Dr. Kris Stokes.

I'm principal scientist at Geysis Ventures where we do a variety of things really centered around material science. So we do R &D management consulting to help products get moving faster. We do manufacturing process improvements. We also do R &D product development. So my background is in polymer chemistry. I have a PhD from MIT. I did a startup.

that had an exit in the oil and gas field chemical sector. I went on to a company manufacturing battery components, and as well as an adhesive company where I was global director of product development. And what inspired you to start Geiss Ventures and what specific problems are you aiming to solve there? Geiss Ventures, I was really focused on trying to solve issues with plastics and

plastics manufacturing. Some of the projects I work on here involve trying to improve sustainable products. I'm working with a company that's recycling party cups into new fibers. currently are not the best. For example, in my town, we have free recycling of plastics, metals, containers of that sort, but nobody really looks at what types of materials are actually allowed. So

everything with some sort of plastic number on it gets dumped in because there's no charge for recycling, but you have to pay for trash to be taken away. So it's both good and bad incentives for recycling. The bad part is that this mixed recycling ends up having, you know, we're only technically supposed to have number one and number two plastics in our recycling stream, but there's all the plastics gets dumped in as long as it's got a number on it, right? And then the second thing is,

aiming for a circular economy. We want to be able to reuse, repurpose, and recycle things much easier. And our current manufacturing processes are not really amenable to that in the fact that, you know, coming from the adhesives world, we use a lot of glue to manufacture things because it reduces labor, it increases the longevity, and it's a lightweighting factor.

And do feel like we need maybe a bit more education? When we talk about recycling of plastics, like you mentioned, people are not reading the label. They think that everything which is made of plastic should just be recycled because it's like all the plastic is the same. And also how does product design and material selection by manufacturers affect the recyclability of the products? Absolutely. My go-to

discussion as far as packaging manufacturers and packaging designers is the, you know, choosing poorly for plastics is actually the Ferrero Rocher chocolates. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but I usually get them as a gift for, you know, the holidays and they're delicious. But every time I open up one of those packages, I get frustrated because each chocolate is individually wrapped in a foil, which has a sticker on top of it.

and then it is placed into a cup that usually has a little dab of hot glue to keep it in the cup. And then each of those cups is packaged into a thermoformed plastic set. And then that thermoformed plastic set is placed into a hard plastic case that is probably injection molded. And I think it used to be made out of polystyrene, which is one of the plastics that's really difficult to accept.

but I did see recently that they've tried to move to polypropylene containers for that big container. they might be making the move in the right direction, but it's sort of my go-to example for non-sustainable packaging in the fact that it's mixed materials, it's the wrong materials, and it's just excessive materials. So do you feel like...

when people want to recycle a Ferrero Rocher packaging, they just throw it all out in the same bin, you know, while they, people actually don't know that each of these parts should be recycled differently. And some of the parts are actually non-recyclable at all. yeah. And actually I would probably argue that maybe the foil is recyclable, but I'm not sure. But basically the rest of it should probably be tossed in the trash. Because again, from my perspective,

Even my town doesn't accept polypropylene. The big case outside, that should get tossed. Yes, you get like a small tasty dessert, but it comes in a lot of unnecessary packaging that is not recyclable and basically ends up in a landfill. Yeah, we should think about the environment as well while we eat our tasty desserts, right? Absolutely. You know, we want to try and have our cake and eat it too. You are working, like you mentioned, in the adhesive industry. So what kind of solutions are you offering?

to better this situation that we have at the moment. One of the things when I was working in the adhesives company was, had a very large customer that continued to come back to me and ask, do you have a defeatable adhesive? And I had to keep saying, no, these things don't exist in the way that you want it. The reason was, is that company uses a substantial amount of glue to make low profile electronics. There's fabrics attached to

to plastics for speakers, there's keyboards and cases that have various types of materials all glued together to make sure that it doesn't fall apart when you're using it. And they wanted to be able to pull it apart at the end of the life and reuse or recycle the materials because again, in consumer electronics, there's actually a lot of adhesives being used for manufacturing purposes. In 2020, I was bored because of, you know,

something that happened during that time. And my college friend, Phil Costanzo, who's currently a professor at Cal Poly, was working on some interesting technology really aimed at re-healable coatings. So if you got a scratch in your car, you could take a blow dryer to it and it would fix itself. I suggested, hey, what if we took this technology and repurposed it? I think that this might be usable for adhesive technology.

And so we got to thinking about it and we started doing some work and came up with a new glue, calling it D glue. And it is an adhesive that's meant to be bonded or defeated at the end of its usable life so that you can recover the valuable materials inside. Yeah. We mentioned that when you use glue.

in making a product. For example, we talked about that earlier. Like when you're making a shoe or a sneaker, a lot of these parts are actually glued together, which maybe Jensen doesn't know about. And you cannot unglue them and you cannot recycle that, let's say shoe, because the glue is not recyclable. So what you're doing is basically making a product that is enabling other manufacturers to recycle their products, right? Absolutely. And one of the things is it's not just about recyclability.

It's about manufacturing rework. So if you're manufacturing something and you need to fix it, if it's glued together, you can't really easily pull it apart and redo it. You have to start all over again and trash that component. It's about repair. Right to repair is a huge area that's just starting out and it's estimated to be a $1 trillion market once we get it in place.

producing so many jobs for individual countries and the world. And then there's the recycling, right? Because we use mixed materials. And so mixed materials are the bane of recycling. We have to use them because individual materials have drawbacks. So we use composites to take advantage of different types of properties. But this is a way to unlock all of those pathways. If we go back to your story about the recycling,

How significant is the role of consumer behavior in recycling? And what you think, what strategies can be employed to encourage more effective recycling habits? The consumer is really important, right? And our behavior that has been trained over the last probably 50 plus years has been more or less, you take it in, you use it, and you toss it. We now know that that's really probably not the right way to handle things.

So by being more aware of repairable materials, repairable products, I think increasing the longevity of the products that we are actually using and enabling us to do that, asking for legislation, demanding it from the companies that are producing these. I want to make sure that I can fix my product before I toss it in the trash.

That has to happen and it's on the consumer because at the end of the day, every company wants to sell you more of their widget. What impact do you think that government policies and incentives have on recycling rates? So I think in the course of government regulation, it's where it's going to have to come down to. Europe has been leading the charge on all of these sustainability efforts for years. The US gets dragged along more or less unwillingly.

because of the shifts in the market that happened in Europe. Some of the economic incentives for using recycled materials are not quite appropriate. So for example, recycled polyester, there's a 30 % markup on it, right? It costs 30 % more to use or to buy recycled polyester resin to make fibers out of than it does to buy virgin materials. So there's an economic incentive to not use recycled materials.

And then there's also the additional property impact from, you know, mechanically recycled polyester. There's some chemical recycling methods available where you can sort of get the properties of virgin materials out of recycled materials, but those processes are still scaling up and it's difficult to get the raw materials to put into that recycling process. And recycling rates?

vary between different countries or regions. So what do you think, which lessons can be learned from areas with high recycling rates? We keep talking about recycling and I just want to reintroduce the word reuse. We just gloss over the word reuse because it's immediate recycle. When I lived in Denmark in 2000, one of the things that struck me was the reuse of the bottles, right? Every beer bottle.

had a, you it was a very nice thick bottle and you put it back in the container and you, you buy your bottles and they were plastic at the time. And, you could see scuff marks on it. have, we as consumers have to be accepting of defects that are cosmetic in nature, you know, certainly not, you know, leaking bottles or bottles that are leaching out chemicals. That's horrible, but there's something to be said for reusing.

And can you tell me, do you have some success stories to share regarding Gacy's Ventures that contributed to the client's journey towards sustainability? I've been working with the new Norm fabrics and trying to navigate the difficulty of recycling materials. Lauren Choi is fantastic. She's been doing a really great job at pushing her recycled party cup textiles.

And, she came to me with some technical expertise questions and I've been helping her out. She's got enthusiasm for sustainable solutions. She's got some things in the pipeline for, know, she's, she's not a one-trick pony. She's got a lot of other things in the pipeline. We have been working together for a, a year now, and she just launched her shop that has party cup.

infused textiles. So, beanies, sweaters. Okay. Like accessories brand. Yeah. So this is how she's, she's starting out is, is trying to make some apparel, get some revenue from that and then, push the recycled solution more broadly. And it's, it's, it's working out really well. And as an entrepreneur in a niche and challenging field, what advice would you give to other entrepreneurs who want to start?

a business like yours focused on sustainability, repair, recycling, circular economy? Persistence. You know, it's you have to ride the roller coaster, especially in the sustainable world. There's a lot of starts and stops. My colleague Phil and I, we keep applying for new sources of funding for government grants. Some are denied. Some are not denied.

but we keep persisting and we've been doing this for almost four years now and this isn't software, right? I can't sit there with a computer for six months and come out with another social media app. This is hard goods technology, right? This is something that takes time, it takes effort and there's a little, maybe a lot of luck involved in timing. So keep at it, you're doing the right thing.

what is the role of marketing in this process because you have to explain what you're doing to people who are probably not introduced to the solutions that you're offering to them. So how do you feel that presenting those solutions and the actual words that you're using are important in this process, especially where you're talking about getting money for funding projects? You have to boil it down to sort of the simplest use case.

And then the other marketing component is have a really compelling demo. We're still working on a really compelling demo right now. We're, you know, we've been bonding fabrics together. We've been bonding aluminum together with some success, but trying to get people's attention, you know, maybe with sort of the tick tock factor associated with it would be extremely valuable, but boil the technology down to its core essential and no further.

so that everyone can understand it, how difficult it is for you as a professor to do that. So for me, I've been doing it long enough that people usually are pretty impressed with their ability to grasp things. But with my friend who's an academic professor, you know, I sometimes have to say, all right, we got to dial it back. Even I haven't done this chemistry in a long period of time. So I know what you're talking about, but I'm not quite with you yet.

Let's back it off. It's a fun dynamic. So if it's too complicated, even for you. Absolutely. You spend a little time out of the lab and sometimes you lose more than you'd like. While working in the field of sustainability for such a long time can be a source of demotivation. All of us have experienced that sort of thing. So what personally motivates you to continue working in this field? You know, my startup company was involved in the oil and gas field chemicals industry.

The approach was for enhanced oil recovery. We had some technology that was also applicable to fracking. There's part of me that feels a little guilty for profiting off of fracking industry. I have four kids, right? And so I came into the polymer world when everything's new, everything could be solved with polymers. And I've seen sort of now this vilification

of plastics, of these sorts of things. And I do think that there still are technical solutions out there that can help us, but I do feel a little sense of paying for my past sins of contributing to the fracking industry. I mean, we still need oil and gas. We have not moved to a completely clean energy environment. So the reality is, is that if we can make that greener, great. But I do feel some sense of,

ownership over trying to make things better. So you're moving into the right direction, Trying to. Trying to, yeah. So, and we mentioned a lot about repairment, recycling. So how can, what advice would you give to everyday people who want to be like you and want to make a positive change and to make...

more environmentally conscious choices. What should they do when it comes to repairs or recycling? When we talk about plastics and textiles because we were focusing on those today. I think number one thing that I tell people is reduce your consumption. Try to figure out how not to consume so much. You know, I'm guilty of it. I try to be aware of my various types of consumption and I try to reduce it as much as I can. The other thing is repair your stuff.

You know, keep it maintained, keep it, keep it in good working order and it will last a long period of time. My son is actually really excited about these sorts of things. He's 15 years old, you know, his Xbox controller was broken. So I said, guess what? YouTube's an amazing invention. Let's go on YouTube, see how to fix it. So he actually has torn apart several Xbox controllers, de-soldered sticks, put them back in. so teaching him to

take care of things when they're broken, repair them if you can. It's increasingly difficult to do that. And that's why we're trying to get this adhesive concept out, adhesive platform out, but repair your stuff. Don't let it be destined for the trash. That's true. How can people find you? Can they find you social media? Where can they get informed on what you're doing and what your company is doing? Where can they get some more research on DGLUE?

Yep, absolutely. So I'm on LinkedIn, Chris Stokes and geisesventures.com is the best place to get a hold of Geises Ventures and see what we're about what we have as far as capabilities. And then DGlu is D-Glu.com. It's kind of a holder page right now, but it's got a link to our granted patent. I'm excited to continue working with with people on this.

Well, Chris, thank you for being our guest on the Green New Perspective podcast. And I wish you all the luck on funding and launching the group. Dunja, thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed the conversation.

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