The Kiwi Cleantech Turning Global Plastic Waste into Industrial Adhesives
Each year the world manufactures over 460 million tonnes of virgin plastic and this is expected to triple by 2050, with more than half of it ending up in landfill or choking our landscapes and oceans. It is an environmental catastrophe of our own making, but nestled on Auckland’s North Shore, a tight-knit team of Kiwi scientists and engineers is quietly orchestrating a brilliant revolution.
By rewriting the chemical rules of upcycling, deep tech startup NILO has figured out how to turn mountains of discarded plastic waste into high-performance industrial adhesives, offering a radical solution to a global pollution crisis while taking aim at a multi-billion-dollar manufacturing market.
NILO’s mission really began to gather pace in 2019 when construction executive Mike Maunsell was introduced to visionary co-founders Tim Williams and Neville Jones. Williams was already a prominent figure in tech circles, having been, along with his business partner, the first foreigners to launch companies onto the Tokyo Stock Exchange. But while Williams’ previous triumphs were forged in the rapid-fire world of software, NILO represented a different beast entirely. Deep tech is a game of immense patience and relentless grit, requiring years of laboratory breakthroughs before a single commercial product can even be deployed.
Maunsell, who had spent decades managing large-scale infrastructure programmes at companies such as Downer New Zealand, immediately saw the profound potential in their core ethos. He initially joined as chief operating officer, and now steers a small team of fourteen polymer chemists, engineers, and strategists through the arduous process of turning a bold scientific theory into a scalable market reality. NILO’s board of directors comprises industry and innovation heavyweights including well known Kiwi cleantech entrepreneur Dr Sean Simpson.
At the heart of NILO’s proprietary technology is the ability to functionalise plastic waste, altering its molecular properties to create a highly effective binding agent. The team focused this breakthrough on the global manufactured wood panel industry, targeting the production of particle board, medium-density fibreboard, and oriented strand board. It was a calculated, brilliant strategy, yet like so many game changing innovations, it was initially met with scepticism.
Early conversations including local manufacturing heavyweights like Fletcher Building, Nelson Pine, Daikin and Borg brought a familiar refrain: it sounded too good to be true. To overcome this inertia, NILO had to dive deep into the specific, rigorous requirements of its first potential clients, refining the chemical composition to ensure it could seamlessly integrate into existing industrial machinery. The ultimate validation came recently at a world-leading, independent testing facility in Dresden, Germany, where the Kiwi-made adhesive proved it could flawlessly match the performance of traditional market incumbents.
This scientific triumph arrives at a critical geopolitical crossroads, highlighting Maunsell’s broader insights into the fragility of modern manufacturing.
For decades, the global wood panel industry has relied almost exclusively on urea formaldehyde – a fossil-fuel-based adhesive that accounts for roughly 90 percent of the global market. This reliance on petrochemicals leaves manufacturers heavily exposed to international volatility and severe supply chain shocks.
Recent conflicts in the Middle East have exposed these structural weaknesses, causing the price of urea, a petroleum byproduct, to spike by a staggering 100 percent since last December. Maunsell points out that this economic turbulence proves environmental responsibility and supply chain security are now irrevocably linked. By utilising widely available local plastic waste instead of volatile foreign oil, NILO provides manufacturers with a domestic insurance policy against global chaos, simultaneously eliminating harmful formaldehyde emissions from everyday building materials.
It is this dual promise of economic resilience and sustainability that caught the attention of global retail giant IKEA. Recognising the disruptive potential of the North Shore startup, Inter IKEA secured a minority stake in the company and appointed a director to the NILO board. This partnership has granted the Kiwi team access to massive European manufacturing facilities in Poland and Slovakia, allowing them to refine their technology alongside world-class industrial experts.
Furthermore, NILO has fortified its future revenue streams by becoming plastic credit certified. Much like carbon credits, these certified assets allow multinational consumer brands to offset their plastic footprints, effectively subsidising NILO’s raw material and pre- processing costs. Yet, despite this high-profile backing, Maunsell remains refreshingly grounded about the realities of market adoption, actively rejecting the idea that companies will adopt clean technology purely out of environmental goodwill.
“People are genuinely looking for environmentally responsible options, but you cannot rely on green sympathy alone,” Maunsell explains. “If you expect customers to pay a premium just because a product is sustainable, you will always remain a niche player. To achieve true global scale and genuinely solve the world’s plastic waste crisis, you must deliver a product that matches the incumbent on price, excels in performance, and happens to be green.”
Armed with international patents granted in the United States and Australia, NILO is now preparing for its next monumental leap. Over the next twelve months, the focus shifts entirely from the laboratory to commercialisation, with the company currently negotiating memorandums of understanding to build its first two commercial production facilities, with one slated for New Zealand and the other for Australia.
The ambition is undeniably global, using a licensed partner model to scale the technology across every continent. For Maunsell and his team, the ultimate goal is not just to build a successful Kiwi business, but to completely redefine how the industrial world views waste.
“If the team keeps performing and delivering solutions, my job is simply to create the environment for them to succeed,” Maunsell reflects. “True innovation is a collective effort, and we are proving that a small team from New Zealand can reshape a global industry from the ground up.”
Interview by Sam Collins
