Over the past two years, businesses have been met with both obstacles and opportunities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. To grow and thrive in this newly challenged landscape of commercialization, pivots have become more necessary than ever for companies who want to continue evolving.
Carmina de Young, from London, Ontario, is one of these companies.
Carmina de Young has been designing and producing garments since 2015. In 2020, it retooled and pivoted into producing medical isolation gowns for Canada, and CY Health was born. That same year, CY Health and its partners launched the LifeCycle PPE initiative.
CY Health and its LifeCycle PPE partners have a vision to create a circular economy of PPE products in Canada that will both strengthen their local economy with job creation and support domestic production of essential PPE.
The alignment of CY Health’s vision and BIC’s focus on enabling Canada to become globally recognized leaders in sustainable chemistry, with an emphasis on the circular economy, made the opportunity for BIC to support and invest in CY Health a natural next step.
“BIC is excited to be partnering with Carmina de Young to support the creation of a Canadian circular value chain for the production of medical PPE,” stated BIC Executive Director, Sandy Marshall.
BIC is excited to announce an investment that will assist with CY Health’s growth, resulting in the diversion of PPE waste from hospitals to be recycled back into the hospital ecosystem through sustainably repurposed and produced PPE products.
“The investment will provide needed financing of the installation phase of Canada’s first spunbond nonwoven textile line that will create quality textile used in the production of Canadian-made PPE,” says company founder, Carmina de Young.
In 2021, CY Health diverted over 66,000 pounds of scrap from the landfill and produced over 140,000 isolation gowns for Canada. This quarter, CY Health is producing 200,000 medical isolation gowns for a government sub-contract while developing new PPE products and expanding its distribution channels.
The goal of creating Canada’s first sustainable supply chain for PPE involves:
· recycling by partner company, LifeCycle Revive
· medical textile production by LifeCycle Health, majority-owned by Carmina de Young
· PPE manufacturing by CY Health, Carmina de Young’s PPE product line
In addition to the support by SCA, CY Health has been supported by Next Generation Manufacturing (NGen), Bio-industrial Innovation Canada (BIC) and National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP). Founding LifeCycle companies include VIS Medical, Nadco International and Simcoe Plastics.
For more information please contact:
A.J. (Sandy) Marshall Executive Director Bioindustrial Innovation Canada Email: sandym@bincanada.ca Tel: 1.519.402.3441
Or
Meg Jackson Marketing and Communications Manager
Bioindustrial Innovation Canada
Email:mjackson@bincanada.ca
Tel: 1.226.778.0020 ext. 249
About Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC): Creating jobs and economic value sustainably for Canada is the vision driven by Bioindustrial Innovation Canada (BIC).
BIC is a not-for-profit business accelerator for sustainable chemistry, who has created a successful foundation to support an emerging hybrid chemistry cluster in Sarnia-Lambton, Ontario. BIC recognizes that the expansion and development of the bioeconomy in Sarnia-Lambton can grow alongside the petrochemical industry. BIC further focuses on critical strategic capital investment in SME’s with compelling business plans where innovation in science and engineering can bring about major advances in sustainable chemistry. Sustainable chemistry is playing an important role in the development of solutions to the impacts of climate change, peak oil, energy security, the need for safe water, and the use of scarce natural resources. The increasing global demand for green and safer produc
ts offers the opportunity to create thousands of new jobs for Canadians.
In February 2020, BIC received a contribution of $15 million from the Government of Canada, through FedDev Ontario, to create the Ontario Bioindustrial Innovation Network, a second hybrid chemistry cluster in the St. Lawrence Corridor, in Brockville, to support innovative companies in sustainable chemistry and clean technologies to commercialize, while reducing environmental impacts. BIC’s proven approach for clean, green and sustainable chemistry-based companies offers an ideal platfo
rm for the investment necessary to advance hybrid chemistry value chains, providing not only regional economic development and job benefits, but access to global markets.
About FedDev Ontario
For more than 12 years, the Government of Canada, through FedDev Ontario, has worked to advance and diversify the southern Ontario economy through funding opportunities and business services that support innovation and growth in Canada’s most populous region. The Agency has delivered impressive results, which can be seen in southern Ontario businesses that are creating innovative technologies, improving their productivity, growing their revenues, and in the economic advancement of communities across the region. Learn more about the impacts the Agency is having in southern Ontario by exploring our pivotal projects.