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Origin’s Biomaterials Alchemy: Converting Wood Chips Into Real Plastic
Despite operationalization struggles resulting in an ugly stock chart, this California-based company is revolutionizing plastic manufacturing and improving recycling.
YCharts.comOrigin’s management, to its credit, scrambled to pivot to a partnership model that would allow it to fund a large-scale commercial plant with less of its own capital and harnessed its plastics chemistry expertise to launch a cash-generative recycling-related business to preserve cash on its balance sheet and avoid the threat of delisting. Founded in 2008 by John Bissell and Ryan Smith, Origin Materials has pioneered a technology based on CMF (chloromethyl furfural), a new chemical platform created from a feedstock of lignocellulosic biomass (anything made from crushed, cut, or chipped wood). By pivoting to a cash-generative model with caps and closures and establishing strategic partnerships to reduce capital expenditures in its biomaterials business, Origin has taken the necessary steps to realize its vision of plastics made from wood waste.
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