Jamie Mayes, FYDER LLC

In high school, I worked for my family business, MAGI Foods, an oatmeal manufacturing company, and during this time I noticed how much of a hassle it was to dispose of the super sacks that carried the oats. It was costly to dispose of the plastic since it required baling and these sacks took up a lot of space on the manufacturing floor. I brought this problem to my business incubator class where we were working on creating a startup to pitch at the end of the year. As my team was brainstorming how we could utilize this plastic, we found out how much waste these super sacks produce yearly. For context, on a monthly basis, the typical manufacturer generates 1,000 to 2,000 super sacks, amounting to approximately 2,400 pounds of waste. This equates to an annual waste production of 28,800 pounds for a single manufacturer. We knew we wanted to find an outlet for this waste, but were torn on what that outlet should be. During one of our meetings, my teammate was showing us her new 3D printer pen, and she also noticed that the super sacks are made of polypropylene plastic, a plastic which is compatible with her 3D printer pen. The idea for FYDER was born.