About Us
We’re rethinking plastic on a global scale.
2020
Circular11 was born
Circular11 was born out of a waste management project in Nepal.
Our two founders, Ben and Connor, lived with families that, like 40% of the world, had two options for the majority of their plastic waste: burn it on open fires, or throw it into waterways. They set out on a mission to turn this plastic into a force for good in all of the communities now being damaged by it.
We came back to the UK and set up a portable recycling facility that could fit within the size of a shipping container.
2021
We spent a year developing composite materials from waste streams, and created an interlocking building block with the intention of deploying it in emerging markets to make sustainable, affordable housing from plastic waste.
We soon realised that, despite its modest trappings, plastic lumber is a more scalable building material to make from plastic waste. We pivoted our production towards high-volume plank manufacture, and sold our first outdoor products made from them by the end of the year.
2022
To gain the world-class manufacturing knowledge we knew we needed, we spent 9 months learning from global commercial leaders in a climate technology programme called Carbon13, and 3 months with the best manufacturing companies in the world in an innovation campus called Circular Valley, in the heartland of German industry.
We spent time in India on a UK/India trade mission in order to understand how to commercialise our technology in emerging markets, and began to prepare our UK operations for scale.
2023
We raised £500,000 to set-up a full-scale recycling and manufacturing facility in Dorset, England, and developed a machine learning-led approach to manufacturing with low-grade wate streams. We knew there would be painful lessons in learning how to execute full-scale operations for the first time, and we weren’t wrong – but came out at the end of the year closer than ever to a scalable manufacturing solution.
2024
We mainstreamed the use of post-consumer waste in our commercial products, figuring out the quality control issues that ordinarily make them so hard to process. And then developed them in fencing products and acoustic barriers for motorways, pioneering the use of low-grade waste in regulated infrastructure applications. And this is just the beginning.
We’re on a mission to turn plastic waste into a resource that enables every community on the planet to meet its need for net-zero growth.
We’re developing and proving our products here in the UK, whilst creating scalable manufacturing systems that we can replicate anywhere in the world. Where currently there is plastic pollution and over-stressed supply chains, we want to create green jobs, clean materials, and a market price for low-grade plastic that will ensure it’s treated as the resource it is.
Our Vision
Rethink What You Know About Plastic
As recyclers, it’s important that we have our priorities in order: first refuse, then reduce, reuse, and repurpose, and only then recycle. Even then, plastic should be recycled in a closed-loop wherever possible, transformed back into the product it was made from.
The problem is, only 2% of plastic is recycled in a closed-loop, and the fact of the matter is that this just isn’t possible for a vast range of irreplaceable plastics, from food-grade, to medical, to construction applications. The problem is that today, open-loop recycling is chronically unsustainable: a high-value polymer might be turned into a jumper filler for a couple of years, but will soon end up being incinerated, poisoning and polluting the air we breathe.
Open-Loop Recycling
To have a place in a truly circular economy, open-loop recycling needs to become more sustainable, more sophisticated, and more scalable. We’re creating open-loop recycling systems that turn certified waste into products that will last for generations, and will be collected and recycled for centuries to come. Our materials don’t become someone else’s problem; we’re invested in getting it back so that no material is lost, and everything can be turned back into products.
Circular11’s mission is to create a scalable recycling technology that can be deployed anywhere in the world in order to capture the millions of tonnes of plastic currently being incinerated or dumped and turn it into a material for good.
Our Impact
Regenerate
Material
We focus on negative-value materials that otherwise would have gone to incineration, and take back and restore the value of our own materials when they are no longer needed.
Decarbonise
Infrastructure
We certifiably divert upstream emissions from plastic incineration, power our operations through renewables, and are investing heavily to reduce our scope 1 & 2 to near-zero.
Benefit
Local
We teach at local schools, offer local recycling points, and aim to offset residual emissions through local habitat restoration.
Scale to
the Need
We focus our growth plans in areas that openly burn or dump their waste, and have embedded advocacy for systems-change in our impact strategy, from production practices to policy.
Our vision goes well beyond
the company we are today...
So to make it a reality we have a world-class team that’s more than capable of taking on the challenge. First of all, there’s the founders, a tag-team to take on the ages – combining Ben’s strategic audacity with Connor’s mythic ability to design and create products, manufacturing processes, or literally anything else needed to get the job done.
Then, there’s the workshop team, made up of B, Alvani, and Jack, all of whom could put Hercules to shame. Then we have our technical specialists, who can work such magic with plastic waste that they’d make Houdini jealous. Rohan heads up polymer engineering, having completed a PhD on the scaling up of mixed polymer blends, and is supported by Shadeepa, a true renaissance man of the material science discipline.
Finally, there are the wizards of the truly arcane arts, our data and software engineers. Daniel leads our data engineering and brings forth from a matrix of 1s and 0s such gold as would turn the old alchemists mad, and Josh, who plays a key role in the development of scalable operational software. Together with our experimental and industrial extrusion lines, plastic testing facilities, and a support network of international experts and partners, we make a team that can’t be stopped in its path to disrupt an industry.
Our impact is supported
by a number of key partners:
Interested
In Our Products?
Looking to learn more about our strong and effective products that outlast and outperform conventional products and materials? Head over to our product range to learn more.
Looking
For Bespoke?
Whether your priority is waste recycling or low-carbon infrastructure, we can adapt our products and services to make sure that you hit your sustainability goals.
Meet Our Team
Ben Gibbons
Bio of each team member to be inserted here.
Connor Winter
Bio of each team member to be inserted here.