MBA’s first joint venture in Europe was formed with Austria’s Müller-Guttenbrunn Group in 2004. Together, we established MBA Polymers Austria in the same year. With nearly 60 years’ heritage, Müller-Guttenbrunn operates in 20 locations across Central and South-Eastern Europe, and employs 1,300 people. The company’s actions are guided by a strong sense of family values and a deep respect for environmental compliance. Its strengths lie in recycling end-of-life vehicles and metal waste, and increasingly, in processing e-waste.

Müller-Guttenbrunn unveiled Austria’s largest e-waste shredder in May 2013 and is experiencing significant growth in this market. All recyclable waste plastics are delivered to MBA Austria for recycling.

“Given that electronic and electrical waste is Europe’s fastest growing waste stream, it makes good business sense for us to maximise this opportunity and ensure that we process as much e-waste here as possible. This reduces the amount of e-waste being exported to developing countries, helps to fulfil EU WEEE targets and helps to create a valuable source of secondary raw materials,” says CEO Christian Müller-Guttenbrunn. “Ultimately, it benefits our company as well as the European economy.”

Müller-Guttenbrunn’s new e-waste shredder has an annual capacity of 80,000 metric tonnes. Material is either sourced from municipalities, businesses, retail chains and OEMs and pre-processed by the company’s patented smasher, or de-polluted externally prior to delivery by specialist companies dealing with TV screens, fridges and the re-use of electronics.

Using advanced shredding and recovery techniques, the shredder recovers ferrous metals to high specifications, ensuring even size distribution and low levels of contaminants. This ensures the highest possible recovery rates of copper and precious metals during the subsequent separation of non-ferrous materials at the Müller-Guttenbrunn-owned company Metran. It also improves the quality of the plastic sent for recycling at the MBA Polymers Austria facility.

“Our joint venture with Müller-Guttenbrunn was an important step in the evolution of MBA Polymers in Europe, and has helped to ensure a steady stream of efficiently processed plastic residue for recycling,” says Nigel Hunton, CEO, MBA Polymers. “As the volume of e-waste in Europe continues to grow, it’s vital that companies such as Müller-Guttenbrunn and MBA Polymers keep innovating in the field of advanced recycling. This is a highly effective and economical route to diverting waste from being exported or landfilled and ensuring that materials are reused in a circular economy.”

Journey to e-waste recycling

Having begun life recycling metals, the Müller-Guttenbrunn Group grew its business substantially when the borders of the former Eastern European block were opened. It is now active in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. The company decided to focus on e-waste in the 1990s. Since then, it has enjoyed continual expansion, particularly in the field of e-waste treatment. Prior to the introduction of its new Austrian shredder, the group established another specialised e-waste shredder near Arad in Northern Romania in 2012.

The Metran facility accepts shredder residue from companies throughout the group as well as from other shredder companies. The Müller-Guttenbrunn Group was awarded with second place in the Phoenix Prize for outstanding work in the processing of e-waste at Metran in 2004.

As global vehicle manufacturers navigate the challenge of balancing the need to comply with environmental regulation with rising energy costs and the rocketing demand for vehicles in emerging economies, one material is becoming increasingly important: plastics. Fibre-reinforced plastic composites offer a 25%-35% weight reduction compared to equivalent steel parts of the same strength. And of course, lighter cars mean greater fuel efficiency and lower emissions.

The automotive and chemical industries are therefore collaborating to develop optimal plastics and polymer-based components – with the knowledge that regulators are stepping up their focus on recyclability as well as emissions. AT Kearney notes that collaboration will be fundamental to catalysing breakthrough innovations, from the design stage to investigating new production and assembly processes, such joining plastics and metals. Importantly, collaboration will be needed throughout the complex automotive-plastics value chain, including the creating of a downstream recycling industry.

This is a trend that was already recognised in 2010 by market intelligence site ICIS. In 2013, leading chemical company BASF won an Altair Enlighten Award – an award specifically recognising vehicle light-weighting achievements – for its development of a thermoplastic composite front seat pan.

The average vehicle weight has dropped by 20%, according to research by AT Kearney, which translates into a similar reduction in per-vehicle emissions. European analysts predict that by 2020, the average vehicle weight will shrink to a little more than a tonne – its 1970 level – after peaking at nearly 1.5 tonnes in 2010.

Interestingly, electric power trains result in heavier cars, accounting for 20% of a vehicle’s total weight, whereas standard combustion engines account for 12% of vehicle weight, says AT Kearney. The firm also expects that within the next decade, plastics will account for 18% of the average vehicle’s weight, up from 14% in 2000.

In addition to light weighting, using the right plastics can also help to achieve improved resistance, stiffness and aesthetics (through greater versatility in design) and reduce noise, vibration and harshness.

As chemical companies compete to fulfil the needs of automakers, they will face challenges in the shape of more competition from steel, oil price volatility, product shortages and recyclability. This is where talking to MBA Polymers can help – we can advise chemical companies and carmakers on the optimum grades of plastic to use in terms of recyclability – and naturally we can offer carmakers the option to source high quality recycled plastic too.

Some manufacturers may consider using bioplastics, although the difficulty here is that there’s currently no standard process to recycle bioplastics effectively and they can otherwise take a long time to degrade, just like standard PET.

Here’s our Quality Control Manager, Peter Mackrell, explaining why automotive shredder residue (ASR) makes a high quality source material. The ASR we receive through our joint venture partnership with EMR is comprised of 75% plastics (and 25% wood, rubber, foam and trace quantities of metal). The majority of these plastics are polypropylene, which is a strong material used for car bumpers. We also receive ABS and polystyrene – these plastics have typically been used in high end applications in the interior of the car. All these high quality materials can be recycled to deliver excellent performance in their next life.

Ultimately, high quality plastics will be increasingly important to the automotive industry. We’re keen to play a role in the expansion of a high quality plastics recycling industry at a global level – and we need policymakers and manufacturers worldwide to join us in making this a reality.

The European Commission (EC) has invested €40m (£34m) in 14 research projects dedicated to resource efficiency. Collaborations will take place among 140 businesses and research organisations in 19 European countries, with projects tackling the challenges of recycling waste materials from manufactured products and the agricultural sector. The project leaders met with EC officials in Brussels this month to agree priorities and determine the next steps.

The aims of the investment are to encourage circular economy thinking and increase resource productivity while promoting reuse and reducing waste – against a backdrop of intense competition for resources, rising energy prices and climate change. The funding forms part of the EU’s wider funding programme for environmental technologies, known as FP7, and follows a €61m investment in 18 resource efficiency research projects in October 2012.

Some 80% of the 14 companies that have won funding this year are small-to-medium sized businesses. Their research projects include the reuse of tyres in high value concrete applications (ANAGENNISI); recovery of cobalt and lanthanide from batteries (COLABATS); automated sorting and recycling of waste lamps (ILLUMINATE); plasma-based transformation of food waste into graphitic carbon and renewable hydrogen (PlasCarb); processing of aluminium scrap for manufacturing aluminium alloys (Recycal); recovery of rare earth metals from WEEE (REEcover) and the investigation of closed loop manufacturing modules (ResCoM).

The EU has invested nearly €50bn in research and innovation projects since 2007. Next year, it plans to launch a seven-year research and innovation funding programme, Horizon 2020, which will focus specifically on transforming ideas into marketable products and services.

For a full list of the 14 resource efficiency projects to be funded by the EC, click here.

Peter Essick’s new book ‘Our beautiful, fragile world’ captures the human and environmental cost of humanity’s deep effect on our planet. Essick, an award-winning photojournalist who has travelled to remote locations recording environmental destruction for 25 years, has focused on a wide range of issues in his latest collection. From the Arctic to the Amazon Rainforest to the sinking islands of the Maldives, Essick takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the major environmental issues facing our society today, including climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, e-waste (or ‘high tech trash’) and plastics pollution.

Essick leaves no stone unturned in his vivid portrayal of people and nature struggling with our changing world. Despite this, he explains that his images are intended to inspire both current and future generations and help them to protect the Earth. His message is one of optimism for change and innovation, he says. In the foreword, Jean-Michel Cousteau, president of the Ocean Futures Society, echoes this sentiment, highlighting the potential for Essick’s work to shine a light on new insights that will improve our understanding of nature and ultimately help us to reverse the damage inflicted on our ecosystems.

“Peter showed true dedication to his craft during the day-long photo shoot at MBA Polymers Austria,” says MBA’s founder Mike Biddle. “He wanted to achieve the best possible shots and lighting to communicate his story. Beyond this, I’m very impressed by his book and the breadth of his work and concerns – it’s clear that we share a passion for tackling plastic waste and protecting our oceans.”

‘Modern Trash’, a selection of Essick’s pictures from around the world.

High tech trash

So how do we balance our need for technology with the avalanche of e-waste it generates? Essick highlights the error of shutting discarded electronic devices away in the attic, items that can be ‘mined’ for plastics and metals to create new materials. He tells the story of his trip to Accra, Ghana, for National Geographic magazine to capture workers picking e-waste apart in unsafe conditions using environmentally unsound techniques. Here, he saw e-waste from the U.S and Europe being illegally recycled.

Essick describes a seedy underworld with unscrupulous middlemen and workers stripping copper wire from end-of-life electronics with their bare hands. Turning the page, you see an image of a young boy carrying a huge stack of wires on his head. In a revealing conversation, the boy tells Essick that he and his family had moved to Accra due to droughts making their land impossible to farm. This image has proved to be the most requested picture of his assignment, because, Essick believes, it puts a human face on a problem that can otherwise seem distant and intangible.

Plastic pollution

In a characteristically perceptive statement, Essick describes how he quickly realised that plastic was the least ‘desirable’ e-waste material in economic terms. He saw workers in Ghana, India, and China tearing out circuit boards and copper wires, and throwing the plastic carcass of a computer into a dump or even a riverbed.

He highlights the ongoing health concerns surrounding some of the chemicals used in plastics manufacturing, and of course the incredible amount of energy it takes to make virgin plastic from crude oil. He whisks us away to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, evoking the exceptionally high concentration of discarded plastics and chemical sludge that are slowly choking our marine life.

The plastic dilemma

Essick is a realist – he explains that despite the untold environmental damage caused by plastic pollution, plastics remain popular due to their cheap price, light weight and durability – the same characteristic that stops them from degrading in landfill or the ocean for hundreds of years. And he touches on the complexities of the sorting process and the fact that a single mobile phone can comprise a dozen different types of plastics that all need to be separated in order to be reused.

A way forward

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. In line with his vision of inspiring rather than demoralising, Essick takes us straight from children handling e-waste in the shantytowns of Ghana to MBA’s world-leading plastics recycling facility in Austria. The contrast couldn’t be more acute. Essick explains the value of our work in recycling plastics from end-of-life electronic goods using advanced technology, producing high quality recycled plastics for use in manufacturing. (For more on our Austrian facility, click here). Finally, he leaves plastics and moves to the next environmental conundrum: fertilizer use…

Let us know what you think of Essick’s work. Does it inspire you to renew your connection with the natural world? Contact us via our website or tweet us @MBAPolymersUK.

» View Modern Waste, images from ‘Our beautiful, fragile world’

The conveniences of our modern world produce all different types of waste. Some waste is in invisible forms such as carbon dioxide or radiation, and other wastes are very noticeable as bright green algae or pink dyes. Electronic waste is a particular residue of our modern world and can be recycled given the proper care and attention.

	At this USA government site in Idaho, high-level nuclear waste is in dry storage. It was a by-product in the production of nuclear weapons during the era of the Cold War, and will remain radioactive for millions of years. » view large
	A dye used as a preservative in the production of tofu at the plant in the background causes the waters of the Yellow River to turn pink. More than 600 million Chinese drink water contaminated with waste and 20 million people drink well water contaminated with high levels of radiation. » view large
	Runoff of nitrogen-rich fertilizer from farmland causes a late summer algae bloom in Lake Erie, Ohio. Excess nitrogen in the water from fertilizer and manure runoff provides the nutrients for the algae to grow. It is the chlorophyll that gives the green algae its color. Some algae blooms also contain a neurotoxin called beta-Methylamino-L-alanine, or BMAA, which can pass the blood-brain barrier and has been implicated as a possible link to neurodegenerative diseases in humans such as Alzheimer’s Disease and Lou Gehrig Disease (ALS). » view large
	At the Notore Fertilizer Plant in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, carbon dioxide is a waste product in the production of nitrogen fertilizer and is released in the flare to the atmosphere causing a greenhouse gas. » view large
	In the late 19th century, Leadville, Colorado was booming. For almost 100 years, millions of ounces of gold and silver were recovered from mines surrounding the city. But eventually the ore ran out, and the soil and surface water in the mining district were heavily contaminated with lead, zinc and other heavy metals. Abandoned mining often have an outflow called acid mining drainage. Many years and millions of dollars have gone into mining superfund cleanups, and some areas polluted by hard rock mining will require water treatment in perpetuity. » view large
	A tailings pond is filled with the waste from the recovery of bitumen in the oil sands near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. There is a radar system to detect when birds are in the area. Then the peregrine falcon effigy pictured is activated with wings that move and predator sounds and a strobe light to scare away other migratory birds from landing on the toxic tailings pond. » view large
	During a thunderstorm in a parking lot in Baltimore, Maryland, Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs runoff into the Chesapeake Bay when it rains. PAHs come out of the tailpipes of vehicles and deposit on the pavement. They are a product of incomplete combustion of petroleum products. » view large
	A young boy in Accra, Ghana. carries computer wires to be burned to for their copper. The computers are shipped here from Europe and the USA and some are reused but majority are dumped in Ghana. Poor workers often from the northern poorer region of Ghana do the work and sell the copper to buyers who send the metal to China or India. » view large
	At MBA Polymers in Kematen, Austria, plastics from electronics are recycled in a sophisticated manner for reuse in injection and intrusion molding. In the laboratory each load is sampled and amount of plastic, wood, metals, etc. is determined. Plastics must be recycled if possible in the EU and incinerated if it is not possible to recycle. » view large

Pictures from ‘Our beautiful, fragile world’, © Peter Essick