Researching Metal-Eating Plants: The Story of Phytrac

No, it's not Sci-Fi, it's an innovative tech business based in Frankton. Phytrac is a cleantech business that provides valuable insights into how plants can be used to "eat up" contaminants in soil.

The Founder's Journey

Founder and CEO Owen Darby is a solutions enthusiast. Originally from Australia, he's had a fascinating career. Working in the oil and energy sector, Owen specialised in finding solutions. He was in charge of managing highly controlled explosions and in researching cutting-edge prototype technology that could provide very specific solutions to very specific problems.

"As an entrepreneur, all you're looking for is problems and solutions. That was my day job. Adapting and modifying to get to the end goal."

Throughout his career, Owen was given the opportunity to do research and development with lots of technologies and roll them out in Australia, New Zealand, Kazakhstan and the Middle East. "Once I completed one job, they started throwing more at me. The sector has all sorts of curly problems."

As his experience and expertise grew, Owen recognised that many industries have "linear", not circular, solutions to their problems.

From Cannabis to Phytoremediation

Owen moved to Otago in 2010 and developed an interest in medicinal cannabis. In 2018, he started Meraki Natural, a medicinal cannabis company that took a sustainable, circular approach to business. He spent years researching the science and opportunities, designing technology that worked in sync with the Otago environment.

High competition and restrictive medicinal cannabis laws made the project difficult, but Owen's research helped him discover another use for cannabis: phytoremediation. "Hemp led us to Phytrac because it's really good at cleaning the soil. It's hungry for metal, phosphorus and nitrates. This is a natural process of the plant. It's looking for some food. It's like a pumping system. The plant's roots will reach out to whatever it can find and some plants, like hemp, are hyper-accumulators."

"It's an alien sort of concept, but really, the plant is just looking for food."

The Birth of Phytrac

Using some of the equipment he'd already developed – including commercial refrigerators up-cycled into growing cabinets – Owen began looking at plants like cannabis and sunflowers and how they could be used to clean contaminated sites. Phytrac is the result.

This innovative approach to environmental cleanup represents a paradigm shift from traditional, often harmful remediation methods to natural, sustainable solutions that work in harmony with nature. By harnessing the natural abilities of certain plants to absorb and process contaminants, Phytrac offers a revolutionary way to clean up polluted environments while promoting ecological restoration.