The San Mateo startup Lasso is one of many focusing on fighting climate change, one recyclable item at a time.
It aims to be an in-home recycling system that's more efficient while breaking containers down.
"The current system only recycles about 20% of what you put in your bin," said Dominique Leonard of Lasso Loop. "So it determines what kind of material it is, cleans it, washes out all contaminates, then processes it, down into its raw form.”
A form that will eventually be built up again, and sent back into stores.
Silicon Valley green startups are taking off these days. Companies like Zeroavia, working to make hydrogen-electric engines to help large aircraft go emission free, just got a $35 million funding round from both venture capital firms, and airlines themselves.
Newark-based Lucid Motors, one of several electric vehicle makers, raised billions of venture dollars to put emission-free cars on the road.
"And I see that happening on both the employee and customer side, employees want to work for employers that care about things like that, and have a brand that says they care about that and will actually do something about it,” said Pamela Rucker, instructor at Harvard Professional Development. “And people want to buy from companies committed to sustainability and are doing the right things with the money that they earn."
In San Mateo, Lasso’s helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by recycling more efficiently than giant facilities.
"We're not worried about speed, we're worried about purity and separation and maintaining that, rather than, how much can I push through in an hour,” said Phil Sanders, Lasso Loop CTO.
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Helping you clean up, and start over.
Because venture capitalists are jumping in, climate tech startups raised $40 billion last year -- that's double what was raised in 2020.
