From waste to wealth: Reimagining the value of trash
By Ramon Atayde, Co-Founder & Managing Director of ARC Ento Tech
We have always believed in the power of business to solve big problems while simultaneously creating economic value.
So when we realised that waste represented one of the world’s most urgent environmental challenges, we knew it required a viable economic approach to solve the problem. Good will and good intentions would not be enough.
The idea came to life in 2019 during a visit to the Philippines, with research and development beginning in the Philippines. During this visit, we witnessed people scavenging from a mountain of trash just to survive. We knew this wasn’t right. No one should have to live like that.
So we felt compelled to find a solution that didn’t just tackle the urgent issue of wasted resources, but also created real opportunities for alleviating poverty.
That moment sparked the beginnings of ARC Ento Tech, a waste-to-resources startup that’s turning heads (and trash) in the $1.7 trillion global waste and resource recovery industry.
The ARC Process™ doesn’t just “manage” trash — it repurposes it into valuable resources like animal feed, fertiliser, synthetic coal, and more. We’re proving that waste doesn’t have to be a problem. It can be a solution.
The innovation
Our innovation begins with an unlikely hero: the black soldier fly, whose larvae can efficiently break down organic waste.
We combined this tiny hero with a patent-pending process for converting plastic and other non-organics into high-carbon reductants, which can replace coking coal in industrial applications. Through this combination, we’ve created a complete waste-to-resource solution.
Unlike traditional waste-to-energy approaches, which rely heavily on incineration, the ARC Process™ captures the full value of the waste stream — recovering, re-forming and repurposing these elements into usable, marketable alternatives to existing unsustainable commodities.
The implications are huge for industries, governments, and communities grappling with shrinking landfill space and rising emissions. And there is enormous potential financial upside.
A global (commercial) solution
The issue of waste is a universal challenge faced by countries across the economic spectrum. So we knew it was critical to ensure the ARC Ento Tech solution was self-sustaining, scalable, and didn’t rely on government support or non-commercial funding streams that may not be accessible in developing countries.
But ARC Ento Tech’s model is not only commercially viable — it’s also licensable, allowing for rapid deployment across regions where landfill and carbon are urgent issues. As federal and local governments push for circular economy solutions, we are positioning ourselves as both a climate tech innovator and an economic enabler.
To drive this roll out, we raised $5 million in a round led by MCCI Corporation to build three commercial plants across Sydney. These plants will validate the ARC Process™ at scale, starting with a pilot project at Hawkesbury City Council, the first of its kind in Australia.
The Hawkesbury plant will initially process 25 tonnes of putrescible mixed solid waste per day, converting up to 85 percent of it into valuable outputs such as SYNCOAL, biofuel, fertiliser, and animal feed. As Sydney faces the alarming prospect of running out of landfill space by 2030, this solution couldn’t be more timely.
In fact, we believe Australia is sitting on a veritable goldmine. With over 1,100 landfills receiving 20 million tonnes of waste annually, the potential to convert this into profitable resources is enormous.
And, unsurprisingly, the model is also already gaining global traction. Licensing agreements are in place with Entoq in Canada, ARC Sustain and Envirotech Corp in the Philippines and Ento Tech Africa Ltd in Kenya, demonstrating the business’s potential to scale beyond Australia.
Because if we want to solve the wicked problem of climate change, we need complete solutions that also contain attractive financial incentives. With the right technology, the transition to a circular economy offers an enormous number of very lucrative economic opportunities — right at our fingertips.
In an industry where incineration has dominated for decades, ARC Ento Tech is offering a smarter, cleaner, and more profitable alternative. One that just might make the world rethink what it means to throw something away. From wasteful to resourceful.
