Startland News is continuing its "Fund Me, KC" series to highlight the efforts of regional entrepreneurs to accelerate their business or extend a helping hand to others. This is an opportunity for business owners and innovators (such as Nicole Dover and Tony Jordan, and their newly established company Recyclverse) to share their crowdfunding stories and possibly gain support from new supporters.

We are Nicole Dover and Tony Jordan, UMKC Enactus and UMKC Bloch school alumni. We are two innovators who started a plastic recycling project at university and decided to continue our mission after graduation. We are seeking to develop our business to recycle more pounds of plastic, reduce the impact on the environment, and allow people to obtain practical and stylish recycled home decor. 

What does your campaign hope to achieve?

Through our activities, we hope to deliver our products to people across the country and let them talk about recycling. We are also involved in the funds; in order to recycle more plastic, we need larger and different machines. With this machine, we will convert more plastic into useful plastic wood for home furniture or as a material for KC artists. 

Click here to view events on Kickstarter.

It made us very angry when we learned in the university how many plastics are produced and used and are recycled and burned. We spent months trying to figure out what we can do. Finally, we found an open source solution called Precious Plastics, and when we started to move plastic waste, we were using and adapting to work for us and our community. 

How much money do you hope to raise through crowdfunding activities?

Although our campaign stated a goal of US$2,000, we hope to make more than US$4,000 to really push our direction. 2,000 USD is the minimum requirement for machinery. US$4,000 allows us to invest more time and energy-pushing our timetable and bringing us closer to our goal of recycling one ton of plastic every month. 

How do you plan to use these funds?

At present, we plan to purchase a minimum extruder to make a new mold set to extrude plastic beams of common shapes and sizes for small crafts and furniture. We are also looking forward to purchasing new molds for our current ovens so that we can further diversify our supply of recycled products. 

What else should our readers know about Recyclverse or this work?

Only 9% of the world's plastics are recycled. With the current local methods, the chances that the recyclables you put in the trash can are almost zero. We hope to increase the odds by recycling plastic into useful items and home decorations. We believe that people need to see the final product that is recycled so that we can build trust in our operations and let people see how much plastic can be converted. 9% is too low, causing too much waste on a global scale. We hope to change this situation.

Click here to view the Recyclverse event on Kickstarter.

This story is possible thanks to the support of the Ewing Marion Kaufman Foundation, a private, non-partisan foundation that works with educational and entrepreneurial communities to create unusual solutions and empower The ability of people to shape the future and success.

For more information, please visit www.kauffman.org and connect at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn