Establishing UK based production via the development of automated production of a novel flushable and biodegradable sanitary towel

PoliPOP是一家雄心勃勃的公司，专注于开发和生产第一款经过认证的可冲洗和可生物降解的卫生巾。这项至关重要的创新消除了相关厕所的垃圾处理负担。此外，它还解决了大约30%的卫生产品被错误地冲下厕所的问题，这导致了我们更广泛的生态系统中下水道堵塞和塑料污染的问题。由于这种垫子是可生物降解的，它们可以无害地冲下厕所，并对每年送往垃圾填埋场或焚烧的数十亿卫生产品产生巨大影响。这种创新的可生物降解卫生巾还没有成熟的大批量生产工艺，因此PoliPOP已经开始在印度和意大利以手工生产的方式生产这种新型毛巾。对于PoliPOP来说，这种方式并不理想，因为产品必须运往世界各地，而新冠肺炎疫情已经给公司造成了严重的延误和生产并发症。目前的手工生产工艺也使得Pad价格昂贵，目前的Pad每台成本为25便士，对市场来说太贵了。该项目的目的是使PoliPOP能够进行必要的研究和开发，以实现衬垫生产的自动化，并将生产带到英国，以大幅改善业务的碳足迹。此外，通过开发专门的高速机器来生产衬垫，该团队希望将生产速度提高2个数量级，从每分钟3个衬垫增加到每分钟300个衬垫。这将大大降低Pad的成本，使其每台不到8便士。该项目适合可持续创新基金的第一轮竞争，因为：*该业务受到新冠肺炎疫情的严重影响，随着我们从疫情中恢复，该项目使该业务能够为公司和英国经济创造新的机会。*该项目为气候变化和环境可持续发展做出了重大贡献，目前数十亿种卫生产品被运往废物处理设施，然后要么焚烧，要么掩埋在垃圾填埋场。这导致每年有数千吨塑料垃圾进入我们的生态系统。该项目使人们能够采取一种真正的可生物降解的方法，与目前的污水处理基础设施完全兼容。*该项目直接有益于遭受耻辱的边缘化个人，PoliPOP针对的是女性和失禁相关市场，男性和变性人等用户将受益于一种可以立即冲下厕所的设备的更好的谨慎。

Polipop is a highly ambitious company focused on the development and production of the first certified flushable and biodegradable sanitary towel. This vital innovation removes the waste disposal burden in relevant toilets. Furthermore, it resolves the problem that around 30% of sanitary products are wrongly flushed down the toilet contributing to the problem of blocked sewers and plastic pollution in our wider ecosystem. Due to the pad being biodegradable they can be harmlessly flushed down the toilet and make a drastic impact on the billions of sanitary products sent to landfill or incineration every year. This innovative biodegradable sanitary towel does not yet have an established high volume production process so Polipop has started production of the new towel in India and Italy with manual production methods. This approach is not ideal for Polipop, the products have to be shipped all over the world and the Covid-19 pandemic has caused the company severe delays and production complications. The current manual production process also makes the pad expensive, the current pads costs 25 pence each to make which is too expensive for the market. The aim of this project is to enable Polipop to do the research and development necessary to automate the production of the pad and bring the production to the UK to drastically improve the carbon footprint of the business. Furthermore, by developing specialised high speed machines to produce the pad the team hopes to increase production speed by an order of 2, from 3 pads per minute to 300 pads per minute. This will drastically reduce the cost of the pad to less than 8 pence per unit. This project fits the The Sustainable Innovation Fund: round 1 competition because: * The business has been severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, this project enables the business to create new opportunities for the company and the UK economy as we recover from the pandemic.* The project makes a significant contribution to climate change and environmental sustainability, at present billions of sanitary products are shipped to waste processing facilities and either burnt or buried in landfill. This results in thousands of tonnes of plastic waste entering our ecosystem every year. This project enables a truly biodegradable approach to be taken that is entirely compatible with current sewage treatment infrastructure.* The project is directly beneficial to marginalised individuals that suffer from stigma, Polipop is targeted for women and incontinence related markets, users such as men and transgender individuals will benefit from improve discretion of a device that can be immediately flushed down the toilet.