In a wor
ld where the sustainability conversation is constantly growing, the ballistic materials world continues to present issues. Recently, BodyArmorNews had the pleasure of speaking with Sam Staincliffe and Jamie Meighan, co-founders of the startup Uplift360. Uplift360, a UK/Luxembourg based company, was founded with the vision for a circular economy based on reclaiming material value from material waste streams.
Both founders boast extensive defence and humanitarian backgrounds. They pooled not only their knowledge, but their experience from being on the ground to inform their understanding of customer needs as well as the straining impact of material waste. “I think we both realized that we needed to do more from a national security perspective, but also from a global impact perspective,” Royal Air Force veteran Jamie Meighan said. When conceptualizing the company in the beginning, Staincliffe and Meighan sought to blend the priorities of national security and defense with an impact driven approach, attempting to utilize already-present materials.
Why Push for a Circular Economy?
Staincliffe brought up an often-neglected point as to how circular economies are important not only environmentally, but financially. When she worked at the Afghan desk dealing with issues to redeployment, there was constant debate over what to do with used defense materials.
“This is bad for the planet, but also for the economy,” Staincliffe posited. “We are burning and burying these incredibly valuable resources that the entirety of our defense structure is built on. There has to be a better way.”
After witnessing firsthand what consequences resource insecurity brings, the co-founders were pushed to look at the waste streams and seriously consider partnering with manufacturers to recycle aircraft or body armor materials. They spotted the problem, had the theories and drive to innovate, but lacked the tech. This is where the Ministry of Defense came in, backing Staincliffe and Meighan’s ambitions. The British MOD provided funding for chemical research and applications, requesting that it be tested on body armor first.
With this funding, they were able to assemble a team of researchers from Imperial College London and Bristol University, and began developing theories for how to recycle aramids.
The RENEW Process
RENEW is Uplift360’s patented solvent technology used for recycling aramids. The process itself takes only a couple of hours.
While RENEW extends beyond body armor materials, their process for recycling body armor aramids is relatively simple. First, the soft armor inserts are stripped of chemicals or residues that could potentially clog the process. Then, the para-aramid is dissolved into a liquid, from which the process mirrors that of a virgin aramid. It’s put into a needle which produces a filament, which combines with other filaments back into a fiber. From here, there are continuous regenerated para-aramids that can be woven and market-ready, with a 70% reduction in the carbon footprint.
The recycling technology is additionally circular by design, with the chemicals used to dissolve the Kevlar being reusable for multiple cycles.
Changing Sentiments Surrounding Sustainability
With tech advancement and the growing amount of information surrounding the environmental impact of defense materials, environmental attitudes in the defense sector have changed substantially in recent years. This is further complicated by the fact that supply chain issues continue to permeate the manufacturing process, and companies still have to balance cost effectiveness with customer needs. One of Uplift360’s targets is to be cost efficient enough to be competitive, making the choice to recycle easier on large defense companies. “What we really need is for green products to be less expensive than virgin, and they’ll be adopted a lot quicker,” Staincliffe argues.
“We’re seeing a big shift in the narrative on resource security,” Meighan says. “We’re using the phrase ‘sustainability via stealth,’ because adopting sustainable practices for benefits from a national security or cost effective standpoint increases circular economy and sustainability, but sustainability is not necessarily the driver.”
EU governments are instrumental in pushing circular economies. The Luxembourgish government helped to fund CEED, a circular economy forum managed by the European Defence Agency. At this forum governments converse about why circular economies are important in defense, and Uplift360 was one of the only startups invited when it was first established. CEED has become an important gathering in terms of gathering funding and discussing the future of sustainability and circularity.
In the future, Uplift360 is looking to expand regeneration technology into the world of Dyneema, addressing even wider aspects of the body armor market.
