UNSW Founders announces inaugural Sir Rupert Myers Sustainability Award
UNSW Founders is pleased to announce Naomi Tarszisz, founder of ‘Replated’ as the winner of the inaugural Sir Rupert Myers Sustainability Award.
The award has been established through the generosity of former UNSW Vice Chancellor and Emeritus Professor Sir Rupert Myers, through the James N Kirby Foundation, and aims to support founders who are actively contributing to a more sustainable world.
Naomi is the founder of RePlated, a startup committed to reducing single-use plastic.
RePlated has created a reusable takeaway container that is simple, saves money, looks good and is good for the planet.
“The James N Kirby Foundation is thrilled to support this award, and congratulate Naomi on her innovation to solve the real world problem of plastic pollution" says Director, James Kirby.
The containers are designed made locally in Sydney from recycled PET, sourced primarily from soft drink bottles. Naomi is also working on what the raw plastic will become once it's life as a reusable food container is over.
“Our lunchboxes answer the circular economy’s call to end plastic in landfill in two important ways” says Naomi.
“Firstly, we make our reusable containers from recycled PET materials. We save plastic that was going to landfill and transform it into our lunchboxes. And, at the same time we reduce how many new materials need to be produced. We don’t package our containers in plastic.
We’ve also made a promise to keep the loop going and take back the containers when you’re finished with them, to make sure that they don’t go into landfill or end up in the environment. We’ll turn them into a totally new product, or material. Ready to be used again and again and again.”
Naomi is UNSW Alumni, graduating with a degree in Sociology. She is a passionate and experienced business leader who has evolved her career significantly in the last four years to put purpose at the fore.
“Naomi and Replated were selected for the award as she is a great example of a founder making it happen, focusing their passion and experience to fix a problem that many people saw, but no-one wanted to tackle.” says David Burt, Director of Entrepreneurship at UNSW.
“We first came across Naomi during COVID when things were looking a little bleak. She was recommended by another one of our female founders. Through our 1:1 coaching service, she has flourished and even gone onto mentor other female founders in our New Wave program. We are incredibly proud of Naomi and the support that UNSW Founders has been able to provide.”
Read more about RePlated and Naomi’s work and the re-use revolution at www.replated.co
