Green Success Stories put Aviv Dekel, CEO of Co-Energy, in The Green Spotlight. Aviv describes the exciting technology used by Co-Energy to convert plastic waste into energy outputs, and to convert biomass waste into biochar. Aviv describes her connection to nature, her sense of gratitude to her environment, and her efforts to advocate for a more sustainable future, both privately and in her work efforts. She hopes readers realize that though waste to value is not as “shiny” as cyber, IT or even AI, it has tremendous potential to be the real driving force in mitigating climate change.

Tell us a bit about your sustainability journey.

Growing up in a small town, my parents had a cattle farm and I was surrounded by animals and nature. I picked oranges from the trees and corn from the field, and it taught me to respect nature and take care of it. At the age of twenty I did a scuba-diving course and got to know and appreciate the maritime environment more closely. Throughout my life I’m trying to live by a sense of gratitude to my surroundings and employ practices of minimum consumption and pollution and to do my part in advocating for a more sustainable future.

Seven years ago I joined Co-Energy and was extremely excited to take these private values and promote them in my professional career as well. I truly believe that we can make a game-changing impact on climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts.

Tell us a bit about the product or solution you offer.

Co-Energy developed a patented technology of pyrolysis-based systems to process organic matter and convert it to different high-value outputs. We have two major product lines: the first deals with plastic waste, which is very rich in caloric value and thus can be converted to various energetic outputs such as crude oil, green ethylene, hydrogen, electricity and fuel; the second product line treats biomass waste and converts it to biochar.

Co-Energy’s technology is novel in its energy conversion rates, allowing maximum output as high as 850 liters of oil from every 1,000Kg of plastic waste. The systems are modular and scalable, treating volumes from 150Kg per hour to 2,000Kg per hour in a single reactor, with larger volumes achieved by placing several reactors in the same unit. Also, our systems offer a most attractive payback period of less than four years.

Share a green success story with us – how have you helped customers or other businesses in the fight against climate change?

One of the biggest problems we face is the huge amounts of plastic waste, which pollutes the oceans, the land environment, dissolves into micro plastic and PFAS that find their way to our food and water reservoirs, and this needs to be addressed. We had a client who owned a plastic recycling factory. We installed our system on his site, and he diverted a stream of 500Kg/hour of the plastic he collected and could not be recycled, and instead of sending it to landfill, pushed it through Co-Energy’s reactor and generated electricity. The system was connected to the main factory electricity cabinet and generated 750KW at 400V.

This project avoided the further landfilling of non-recyclable plastic waste, generated electricity from a non-fossil fuel source, and paid back the investment in less than three years.

What would you do with $1 billion dollars?

I would invest it in Co-Energy

But seriously, I would use the funds and invest them in executing more waste-to-value projects world-wide, especially cleaning the oceans from the plastic that destroys the maritime environment, acidizes the oceans and ruins algae which is crucial to maintain the oceans as natural carbon sinks. Unfortunately, cleaning the oceans is not bankable because of the energy consumption/production calculations (trust me, we really tried to make it so), so this would need to be a pure good cause project and these are hard to finance.

Also, we see such a dire need in developing countries to treat the enormous amounts of waste they have but they lack the capital required to invest in setting up the projects. This goes to plastic and biomass waste. If you consider the amounts of biomass waste as well and its potential to be converted to biochar, we’re talking about millions of tons of CO2e that could be sequestered and methane emissions avoided.

What do you envision your industry looking like in ten years?

I think waste to value will be much more developed and acceptable. Regulators are already recognizing the importance of setting the right standards and working with the industry to advance W2V as the best solution to waste management. I think that plastic waste will become more common as a source of ethylene and hydrogen. I this that in a while the industry will mature and the few companies leading the market today, including Co-Energy, will cement themselves as the market leaders.

What would you like readers to take away from this article?

Waste to value is not as shiny as cyber, IT or even AI. It involves a lot of hardware, it is capital intense, and it requires disruptive technologies that are extremely hard to execute. But, its potential benefits in sustainability terms and in financial terms is like no-other, and it is this combination of superior technology and a sound business model, that can be the real driving force of mitigating climate change.

How should readers get in touch with you and/or your organization?

You are more than welcome to write me an email or reach out on LinkedIn.

Kudos

Many thanks to Aviv Dekel and Co-Energy. Green Success Stories is happy to support and highlight your efforts! We invite you the reader to do the same.

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