Ecotone Renewables

Ecotone renewables seeks to close the food loop, nearly 40% of food is wasted worldwide throughout many steps in the supply chain. Imagine if this was not viewed as waste but a resource to empower communities by providing methane natural gas and nutrient rich fertilizer. These outputs can then be used to grow food, supplemented with funds garnered from selling this sustainably made fertilizer. Our prototype system in Pittsburgh PA takes in 50 lbs of food waste per day, producing 5 gallons of fertilizer a day, and providing 1.25 kilowatts of energy tri-weekly. This system is housed in a shipping container with a greenhouse built on top so it can be easily planned designed and shipped to the desired location. These systems can be designed to be on or off the grid depending on the available resources, and put out the direct fertilizer and crop depending on client needs.

The food waste problem for grocery stores in the United States is a $15 billion annual problem, where one in seven truckloads of food are wasted. It is understood that these kinds of institutions are wasting 107,000
tonnes of food annually, while also paying $400 to $600 to haul away these items, weekly. Agricultural greenhouses and universities, too, produce enormous amounts of organic waste that can be managed. We have reached out to greenhouses and universities to understand that they have yet to find optimal solutions to this problem. Grocery store national reports by the USDA show that there are insufficient transportation
and recycling options. 

The Ecotone Renewables solution is our Seahorse compact anaerobic digestion system. The system is the size of the typical dumpster, but diverts organic matter. Our Seahorse solution saves waste hauling fees, while also creating another revenue stream. The organic matter can be used as a fertilizer and provides additional revenue. 

This solution serves populations that produce high quantities of waste, growers, and economically disadvantaged populations who have to live in the waste produced by privileged groups. 

One of the largest issues of food production is food waste. Food waste pollutes the earth around it, can leach into water, and primarily affects economically disadvantaged populations. Our solution turns food waste in to plant nutrition, closing the food loop. As a result, the waste is repurposed to fertilize plants without harmful chemicals. 

Anaerobic digestion is the process of microorganisms breaking down organic material without oxygen being present. It is like a stomach. You eat food, it breaks down and comes out as gas and broken down nutrients. Ophelia is doing the same thing! We blend up some food, pump it into her stomach and then later out comes some gas and other things (fertilizer)! More specifically: methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen -- we take these and turn them into electricity. 

This process, anaerobic digestion, naturally occurs in soil and water sediments, but is a process that people have been using since the 10th Century to warm up bathwater. 1895 was the first time the methane produced in this process was used in a lamp and the process has been ever evolving. 

So, why anaerobic digestion? Food waste produces a ridiculous amount of methane. When that waste goes into the landfill, that gas will be released into the atmosphere and contribute to the greenhouse effect (meaning climate change). 

Why not compost? You can definitely compost! We encourage composting and do it ourselves. Unfortunately, composting is also incredibly labor intensive to turn, so it is hard to maintain. Additionally, this is an aerobic process, meaning oxygen is involved, which also means a lot of carbon dioxide is produced and released into the atmosphere. 

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One of the largest hurdles for this project is the lack of public policies surrounding this particular project, while this leaves room for a lot of research and work, it also means that policy has a lot of room to change. The three possible factors of failure for this team would be the inability to raise initial capital, pivoting, and marketing. 

• Funding: While the team has been functioning off of grants and competitions, we acknowledge that it is time that we start moving toward investment funding — which uncovers new requirements and strategies, meaning that the team faces a new learning curve and will more strongly rely on a business advisor in the future. 
• Pivoting: Another problem may be the inability to pivot fast enough— it is important that the team focuses on what the customer may want, more than our own desires to do research. 
• Marketing: Our final problem that we might face is from poor marketing. Our product is one that may not be the most easily marketable. 

• Funding: By moving towards investments over grants, we can achieve a more reliable funding.
• Pivoting: In order to combat this problem, we will need to focus on remaining open minded to external advice and be malleable in our planning. 
• Marketing:  a strong network is one that can truly combat this, where we can build not only customer loyalty through a strong name, but also build a strong and sustainable community.

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Ecotone Renewables contains a dedicated team of eight students. The founders of the company include:

Kareem Rabbat (CEO) is a senior at the University of Pittsburgh studying Environmental Engineering with an Engineering for Humanity certificate. He designed and launched aquaponics systems in Brazil and the U.S., and is a certified operator of anaerobic digesters. As our CEO, he strives to innovate our systems to maximize energy output, conserve resources, and close all loops.

Dylan Lew (CTO) is a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University studying Materials Science and Engineering. He conducted fuel cell research under Dario Dekel in Israel, and worked on 3D printed parts for jets through GE Aviation. His expertise includes sustainable materials, renewable energy development, and additive manufacturing.

Kyle Wyche (COO) always been fascinated by natural systems—manifesting through his current work in terrarium design. Trained in the study of biological research and ecology, Kyle has experience working with innovative startup companies. 

The team contains students of engineering and chemistry backgrounds, there is still room for business development. Through the use of the Swartz Center and the right connections, it is likely this role will quickly
be filled. This team is not only intelligent and hardworking, but particularly, they are dedicated to the cause and work diligently and quickly to learn as much as they can about their product and their market. Students on the team have experiences such as: growing up on farms, working for large scale anaerobic digestion systems, green chemistry, fuel cell labs, and industrial manufacturing.

So far, we partnered with four local organizations to gather and convert up to 500lbs of waste per week. We convert the waste into fertilizer and sell to local farmers markets.   

• 412 Food Rescue
• Repair the World
• The David L Lawrence Convention Center
• The Muddy Waters Oyster Bar

The price of the Seahorse system is currently planned for $45,000, based on a three year or less ROI for the majority of customers. Current costs of goods is approximately $30,000 per unit, but we expect cost will decrease by approximately $750 per unit per ten units sold, until we reach a scale cost of $10,000-$15,000. At scale, this will position us with sales margins on the physical product growing from 50% to 67%, if we maintain premium pricing. Similar waste to fertilizer and waste to energy systems can cost upwards of $100,000, while waste hauling fees can be calculated between $400-$600 a weekly or biweekly load, and energy can cost around 12 cents in the United States per kilowatt hour. The return of investment for the individual customer, from utilizing both the fertilizer and electricity byproducts would be within one year and a half, which is a lot faster than many renewable sources of energy, such as five years for solar. A three year projection places Ecotone at $500,000 of net revenue, with a 33% gross margin, and a return on the investment into the project being within two years. 

We are applying to Solve because we hope to expand our product and close the food loop globally. Solve can help us to market and improve our technology so we can install more of our systems. 

We need partnerships to expand our business model and enter communities around the global. We also hope to improve nutrient calculations for our fertilizer by sensing food before it enters the digester to estimate the content output. 

We would like to work with Oral Buyukozturk, David L. Des Marais, or Dara Entekhabi. We believe they can assist our team in improving the technology and more accurately monitoring the waste input. All of these MIT professors have experience in technology related to our anaerobic digester and could help us to improve sensing technology to more accurately monitor inputs and outputs of nutrients for our customers.