Alucha

Alucha Logo

Twitter Pitch

Alucha: no more dumb & dirty landfilling of wastes but clever recycling solutions aiming for zero waste in the paper & other industries.

Company Information

  • ECO12 Award category: Startup
  • Company name: ALUCHA Recycling Technologies S.L.
  • Country of origin: Spain
  • Company address: Calle Baldiri Reixac 4, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
  • Founding year: 2004
  • Company status: private company
  • Website: www.alucha.com
  • Contact person: Hans Cool, Finance Manager, Alucha, hans.cool@alucha.com
  • CEO: Gijs Jansen (Photo)

Gijs Jansen Photo

Elevator Pitch

Alucha identifies and finds solutions for complex waste streams that are currently not recycled but for which pyrolysis technology, in which we have unique expertise, could be used to recycle them. For the paper industry, we have developed a proprietary and novel solution to recycle plastic-aluminium laminates, thin layers of plastic and aluminium present in, for example, tetrabriks. Of that technology, we have sold a first license to paper multinational Stora Enso. The installation we built for them came online in 2010, and annually recycles laminates from some 1 billion tetrabriks into pure aluminium and valuable fuels, thus achieving zero waste from these laminates. This is unique: while many others tried to make pyrolysis work on industrial scale, we are – as far as we know – the 1st to have made this a reality. Currently plans are prepared for future plants at other paper mills. At the same time, and in conjunction with a laeading university, we have developed a revolutionary pyrolysis system for the recycling of the paper industry’s single biggest waste stream: paper sludge, also with the aim of recovering precious minerals and fuels from a waste that currently has no environmentally friendly solutions. This solution is likely to be very efficient for wastes in many other industries, reason why we filed for a patent.

Smart Green Product

Most waste from the paper industry today still goes to low-tech solutions. The unique technologies that Alucha develops are tailor made to smartly recycle these wastes, separating the different materials in the waste. Once separated, the materials can be re-used. We thus reduce the environmental pressure on the earth’s primary resources. Our solutions also save on global CO2 emissions. Lastly, we also make sure they function from an economical point of view, with payback times less than 4 years.

Milestones

  • Funding: €275K in equity and €500K as subsidized loan
  • Investors: Finaves (IESE Business School)
  • Employees: 2010: 3, 2011: 4, 2012E: 5
  • Revenues: 2010: €20K, 2011: €30K, 2012E: €400K
  • Customers: Stora Enso
  • Milestones: In 2010, the European Commission assessed our recycling solution for plastic-alu layers in tetrabriks and presented us with the Best of the Best Award, selected out of hundreds of environmental projects in Europe. In 2011, the Confederation of the European Paper Industry chose our technology as winner for their biannual European Paper Recycling Award. The system that we built at Stora Enso (and that is currently running 24/7, recycling 1000 KG of waste per hour, recovering aluminium and fuels) had the distinct honour of being inaugurated by the President of Catalonia on Sept 6, 2011.