Keeping Up With the Sustainables: Hydrogen Utopia's CEO Aleksandra Binkowska

Courtesy of Hydrogen Utopia

Taking an inside look at turning plastic waste into sustainable energy with the CEO of Hydrogen Utopia, Aleksandra Binkowska

We had the pleasure to speak with a woman who is quite literally changing the way people view and use hydrogen. With a firm belief that hydrogen is the commodity of the future, Hydrogen Utopia is on a mission to take the development of a circular and net zero carbon economy in Europe to new heights. Aiming to become one of the main European specialists in turning non-recyclable mixed waste plastic into carbon-free fields, new materials or even distributed renewable heat.

According to the United Nations environment program, one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute around the globe, meanwhile, five trillion plastic bags are used every year all over the world. The rate of plastic production has increased excessively since the 1970s, if this ever-growing plastic production maintains its speed, the global production of primary plastic is forecasted to reach 1,100 million tonnes by 2050.

Courtesy of Unspash

With no previous background in engineering or science, Aleksandra Binkowska, CEO of Hydrogen Utopia tells us, “I laugh because I could hardly pass exams from physics or chemistry when I was at school.” As someone whose expertise lies in business, Binkowska saw the brilliance in what Hydrogen Utopia could be, “if I see something that makes sense business-wise, but also good for the environment on a topic that everyone is and should be concerned about, I knew I could lead it. Engineers can do their expertise and I can do mine.”

Hydrogen Utopia addresses the immense environmental threats caused by waste plastic by turning the non-recyclable waste plastic into alternative energy sources of hydrogen and electricity which do not depend on the use of fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal.

To make it easier to understand and appreciate the process, Binkwska breaks it down for us:

“Imagine there's a city. A city has a plastic problem, and the city centre is now used to ship plastic to third-world countries. First of all, Germany would ship it to Ukraine, then Poland to China and Vietnam. Now both countries, both sides, don't want to do it anymore. Banned from both sides, so then what do we have? Oceana and seas to dump the plastic into. We now have a problem, and the way to solve it is to deal with our plastics locally. So, Hydrogen Utopia is all about dealing with plastics locally, turning them into fuel which can power long range or public transportation. That's all it's about.”

One of the main barriers to using hydrogen as an alternative energy source is the cost of producing, storing, and transporting hydrogen. “Hydrogen is very difficult to transport, it's very expensive as it's the smallest gas in the world, so it leaks. Very expensive tanks are required to transport it, then later, you liquefy it, which turns it into liquid form. But, this as a process is very expensive. So what do you do? You can use the hydrogen where you produced it. So you produce it from plastics and then you use it locally for public transport. Just for a complete amateur like I was myself two years ago, I calculated that, let's say half a million - which is small, can use one of our systems and fuel 85 public buses. So what we do is, we take 35 tonnes of mixed waste plastic, and we turn it into hydrogen and synthesis gas. Synthesis gas is a different story, it is something we can replace natural gas with, this came to mind especially when the war in Ukraine broke out as they couldn't fuel their businesses, like ceramic plants, tile plants and so on. And we can dispose of natural gas with synthesis gas as they have pretty much the same structure. But hydrogen is my focus, a very simple concept but very difficult to execute.”

Bringing fashion into the equation, and understanding how fashion pioneers can embrace Hydrogen Utopia, Binkowska reveals one of the industry icons who is on board - the famed Harold Tillman. Tillman used to be chair of the British Fashion Council and former head of Jaeger, he is the co-founder of the Ethical Fashion Group which aligns 60,000 fashion businesses in 140 countries with sustainable suppliers globally. A match made in hydrogen heaven, the two organisations have now joined forces to create an initiative allowing clothing manufacturers, suppliers and retailers to address the environmental impact of products made partly or fully from non-recyclable plastics like polyester and polyamides.

The United Nations says that the production of clothes that we wear contributes to approximately 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions due to its long supply chains and energy-intensive production. This harrowing statistic shows that the industry consumes more energy than the aviation and shipping industry combined. This is why Hydrogen Utopia is working on addressing this issue with the help of Tillman and the Ethical Fashion Group through Hydrogen Utopia’s technology that will turn items of clothes into road-fuel quality hydrogen fuel.

Binkowska was amazed when she started looking into clothes. “It shocked me, I thought my silky blouse was made out of silk, it was 100% polyester. I could not believe it. I thought it was a blend but it was incredible to realise this beautiful blouse was polyester, which means I could easily put it through my system and turn it into hydrogen. Wow. Instead of burning it, we could turn it into hydrogen.” She also went on to tell us how brands like Chanel and Burberry, despite having such high prices and being the most highly regarded brands, are still going to have some sort of polyester in their products, which is a form of plastic coming from fossil fuels.

“The oil and gas industry is the first pollutant in the world, the second after is fashion, and funny enough, Harold told me that it's not even just high or fast fashion it's also clothing for industries such as medicine. Every time a doctor finishes his surgery he dumps his costume somewhere. And if he has five surgeries a day, he will chuck five lots away a day - and that is all plastic. He said putting fashion aside it is important to think of clothing for professionals - from firefighters to surgeons.”

Binkowska sees the reality of the world we are living in and that as human beings we cannot always be fully sustainable in everything we do as the world is not built like that, for instance, she tells us about her business trip to New York, her luggage was lost, so what did she do? “I went to Zara, I had come off a long flight in need of change to meetings, too tired to go on the hunt in other shops without Zara's reputation. She found herself buying a few essentials amongst masses of other shoppers bustling through the popular shop. “But the thing is, that is why my plan is not Greenpeace, it is not aimed at telling people to stop buying because I think it is impossible. I don't think we can tell people to stop driving cars or shopping.” But what the woman pioneering change can do is change the system to make it easier for the people that do want to make different choices with how they live and treat the planet, making it easy and profitable for the companies.

If you are someone interested in being part of the Hyrogen Utopias journey do as Binkowska's favourite Polish saying from her grandmother said, you get to heaven through people, the power of conversation is indescribable and for leading game-changers like Hydrogen Utopia, they need the power of people and funding to make the magnificent come true.