48. Pulpatronics – making RFID tags fully recyclable and non-toxic

Sustainability Award – Shortlisted

In recognition of a sustainability leader that prioritises the health of the planet as part of its company mission.

Startups 100: Sustainability Award

Founders: Chloe So and Barna Soma Biro
Year founded: 2023
Website: pulpatronics.com

Do you remember the first time you used an auto checkout machine? No need to hunt for the bar code in your pile of t-shirts, you just tossed all the apparel you were buying into a giant futuristic box and it scanned the radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag for you.

As well as speeding up checkout for shoppers, RFID tags have also revolutionised inventory management, by providing real-time stock insights to store managers and scrapping the need to enter data manually. 

Yet, as the smart stock tracking technology increases in popularity, so does its impact on the environment, with over 30 billion single-use tags ending up in landfills every single year. 

Discarded electronics have a much more detrimental impact on the environment and public health than normal waste. That’s a fact that PulpaTronics is acutely aware of, and aims to address with its sustainably produced, metal-free, chip-free RFID tags.  

The ingenious startup has found a way to produce fully recyclable and non-toxic RFID tags, by lasering a conducive circuit directly onto paper. 

This streamlined manufacturing process also eliminates the need for metal and silicon components, making the tags much cheaper to produce than competing products.

At a time when the comparatively high cost of eco-tags is deterring retailers from making green decisions, PulpaTronic’s lower price point helps to open the technology up to a much wider demographic (one big reason it was nominated for our 2025 Startups 100 Sustainability Award).

PulpaTronics is the brainchild of a group of final-year master’s students whose backgrounds range from biology and fashion to industrial design. Despite only being founded last year, the startup has already received multiple engineering and design awards (including a £100k Innovate UK Net Zero Grant) and closed its pre-seed funding round of £400k. 

The company’s RFID tags have been proven to cut annual CO2 emissions by 70% and costs by half, so it’s no surprise its emerging technology has attracted a buzz. 

What’s more, with PulpaTronics planning to bring its technology to mega-retailers like Zara in coming years, while also shaking up industries from hospitality to logistics, you can expect to see a lot more of PulpaTronics, and a lot less of electronic RFID tags, in the future.