Envisioning a world where objects come to life, and degrade after their use. Primitives are pioneering a new paradigm for reducing plastics pollution - by engineering plastics with algae and other bio-based feedstocks that are “smarter” than traditional plastics. By harnessing nature’s embedded intelligence, they're creating materials with advanced sensing, display, and biodegradation properties. Viirj Kan and cofounder Noa Machover developed the core technology as students at MIT. While it has multiple applications, they saw particular potential in thin-film packaging because the new material is compostable, so it can help tackle the problem of plastic waste as it gives new functions to packages. Typical thin-film plastic—the material used in pouches, bags, and wraps around products like meat—can’t easily be recycled because it’s made in multiple layers of different plastics that can’t be separated.