Low-Carbon Materials
From Waste
For Good
Circular11 transforms waste-bound plastic
into low-carbon fencing, furniture, and landscaping products for the construction and estates sectors. We combine cutting-edge material science and machine learning to expand what it’s possible to recycle, and we’re on a mission to turn the global waste problem into a supply-stream for the materials we need in a net-zero world.
We provide end-to-end circularity to ensure that our recycling is fully traceable, and our products have quantifiable impact.
We Transform Waste In Three Steps:
01
Recycle
We collect directly from companies and communities with problem plastics, or work with sorting facilities that have large volumes of plastic that cannot be separated or resold. We quantify how much plastic would have gone to incineration or landfill (our ‘additionality’).
02
Reprocess
We shred this material down and create a chemical profile of it so that the data can be fed into our machine learning algorithms. These work out the optimal formulation for each waste stream. After this, the material goes through in-house strength testing to guarantee product quality.
03
Remanufacture
Finally, we use a process called extrusion to create plastic lumber, which we then make into finished products. We use our own digital operating system to track what plastic streams end up in each individual product, along with the carbon used and diverted in its production.
Net Zero
Our supply chain directly diverts carbon emissions from plastic incineration, a process more carbon intensive than burning coal, meaning that more carbon is prevented than is used in production.
Circular
We recycle all of our own products and those of our competitors, and will work with you to collect it at end of life, ensuring that plastic stays in the economy and benefits people & the planet for centuries.
Traceable
All impact is quantified and accredited so that it integrates with carbon reduction targets and ISO 14001. Alongside EPDs, we can issue product-specific reports that evidence product impact.
Industry Partners
Since timber preservatives were banned in 2006, the lifespan of timber products has collapsed from an estimated 20 years to 5.
Our products have a minimum ten-year guarantee and should last three times that, ensuring a huge cost saving over the lifetime of the product compared to timber.
They are maintenance free, will not rot or splinter, and have all-outdoor fixtures to weather all storms.
We believe that
recycling technology
can change the world
Connor and Ben founded Circular11 after working on a waste management project in Nepal, where they could see the impact of waste burning on the families they lived with.
Our goal is to develop recycling technology that makes low-grade plastic valuable and bring this technology back to communities without waste management, like those in Nepal where our journey started. To do this, we’re rethinking plastic on a global scale.
We’re called Circular11 because we believe that a circular economy is key to the 11th Sustainable Development Goal which states that everyone should have access to proper waste management and be able to build sustainable and resilient built environments with materials that are sourced locally. We believe that achieving a circular economy is the key to locally-sourced, net-zero materials; and a thriving recycled materials industry is the key to enabling a circular economy.
Plastic waste is the one material that almost every settlement in the world has in abundance.
By 2060, there is expected to be one billion tonnes of it annually.
Meanwhile, global timber supply will be able to meet only 1/3 of projected demand, creating an urgent need for alternatives.
What if waste could supply the materials for the net-zero world we need?
Latest News
Quantifying Our Impact
If most manufacturing processes used waste materials as a feedstock, the world would look very different. For starters, we’d have to stop talking about waste, because there wouldn’t be any – only feedstocks. The extraction of virgin resources would plummet; resources already in circulation would be more valuable, and treated as such.
But it’s easy for companies to exaggerate the good that they’re doing – especially when no-one agrees on what it really means to divert waste, and how to calculate the impact of it.
That’s why we’re committed to being transparent about what we do now, what we’re aiming for, and how we think about and measure our impact. There are three types of environmental impacts that we want to make: recycling rates, waste diversion, and carbon savings.
Big Earth Energy Episode 7— The Journey to a Circular Economy with Ben Gibbons
Circular11 is an innovative company with a clear mission: creating end-use products from recyclable plastics and fostering a truly circular economy. Ben Gibbons shares the fascinating story of how his company began as an NGO in Nepal and evolved into an operation dedicated to combatting plastic waste.
Throughout the episode, Ben discusses some surprising and compelling insights about recycling. He addresses some of the misconceptions around waste management and reveals actionable steps that individuals can take to ensure their items get recycled, rather than ending up in a landfill.
Working With Wembley Stadium To Achieve 100% Recyclable Pitches
It is the result of a two-year project to find a suitable solution to recycling modern-day football pitches, which are a hybrid of grass and synthetic plastic.
The project is being billed as a first in the world of football.
A large amount of professional playing surfaces in today’s football games contain plastic to make them more durable.
Hybrid pitches reportedly offer increased reliability in variable weather and can be used for multiple purposes, yet their recycling has been a challenge.