Company you should know: Utopia Plastix
Founder Sharina Perry has been an entrepreneur for over 25 years. She found her way into entrepreneurship after losing her job, when her employer decided to shut down his cable and internet service company. She then decided to take the reins to the company on her own, and never looked back.
In 2018, as a result of a family medical issue, she began studying plant materials. She went on the develop a health and wellness line largely dependent on hemp, that showed a great deal of promise. Hurdles around seeking FDA approval kept her from deciding to pursue this route further.
The real kick starter for Utopia Plastix came when Sharina found herself at a restaurant drinking water through a paper straw. Fully supporting the desire to move away from single use plastics as we know them, she understood why the paper straws where there, but knew they could never be the real solution. So she set about trying to solve this.
Fast forward a few months, and she’s trying to cook up a straw recipe in her kitchen. She developed a hemp-based straw with a wax coating and started to see some promising results. She temperature tested them to see if they would start to disintegrate like the paper straws did, and the hemp straws actually became more rigid. She worked with some local companies to develop more hemp pulp to make more of these straws. The further she went down this road, the more apparent it became that she needed to look into plastic solutions too.
Armed with some success, Sharina began reaching out to researchers who were experts on polymers. She eventually found a researcher who helped develop a hemp-based organic polymer that could be used in any existing petroleum-based application without needing to modify any equipment or machinery.
This polymer enables many previously non-recyclable plastics to be made 100% recyclable and biodegradable. These plastics can be used across the array from straws and single use plastics, to aerospace and automotive durable plastics. They have also shown to be more temperature resistant and durable than their petroleum-based counterparts.
The plastic resin pellets and powder that Utopia has created have such a wide array of solutions that the market has certainly begun to notice. They’ve been able to secure contracts with large national companies, smaller local companies, and even international ones. As the world continues to need solutions to its plastics problems, Sharina Perry and Utopia Plastix will be more than ready to hear the call.
The “Utopian” ideal stems back to Sharina’s childhood and her desire to create a world where additions in one place don’t require subtractions in another. She wanted to build a world where everything worked together toward the common goal, and now as an adult she’s helping achieve that dream. Utopia Plastix uses responsible farming techniques with a crop that is more effective at removing carbon dioxide than even trees. It creates solutions to single use and durable plastics that can fit into existing manufacturing processes seamlessly. It truly does solve problems without creating new ones, a company worthy of its name.
