MBA Polymers UK, appoints new General Manager

Worksop based plastics recycling company, MBA Polymers UK, has announced the appointment of Paul Mayhew as its General Manager, with immediate effect.

Paul has over 10 years experience within the recycled plastics sector and has been with the company for 4 years. In his new role he will be responsible for all areas of the company and for leading the company’s ambition to increase volumes and continually improve product quality.

His appointment comes as MBA Polymers UK prepares to increase its production capacity, creating 8 new jobs and resulting in an additional 600 metric tonnes of mixed plastic waste being diverted from landfill.

EMR Director Anthony Marrett commented, “Paul has been a key team member in helping the company move towards its goals. With our recent increase in capacity and the growth of our team, I am confident that Paul will be successful in helping us to provide our customers with an excellent service.”

 

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 Notes to editors

MBA Polymers Inc, is a world leader in the production of post-consumer recycled plastics. We source 100% of our feedstock from post-consumer goods diverted from landfill or incineration, and our proprietary process means that a single tonne of our recycled product saves approximately 4.8 tons of CO2 compared with the manufacture of virgin materials.

MBA Polymers UK is a JV with EMR (European Metal Recycling), one of the world’s largest metal recyclers with approximately 170 facilities globally. Please visit EMR’s website http://emrgroup.com/ for more information on the Group and recent developments.

Release date: September 14th 2017

Ref: PR025

 

For further information please contact

The Press Office
Email: marketing@emrgroup.com

Tel: 01925 715400
Web: mbapolymers.com

emrgroup.com

 

MBA Polymers UK

Sandy Lane

Worksop

Nottinghamshire S80 3ET

England

 

EMR

Sirius House

Delta Crescent

Warrington

WA5 7NS

MBA Polymers UK, Appoints New Quality and Technical Manager

 

Worksop based plastics recycling company, MBA Polymers, has strengthened its team with the appointment of experienced Quality and Technical Manager, Bryn Williams.

Bryn joined the firm in August 2017 to support the team in creating high quality products and develop the company’s product portfolio. Bryn comes with a wealth of experience, a BSc in Chemistry, further education in Polymer Technology and 20 years involvement in the industry. His previous positions include Product Development Manager and Quality Manager at BPI Recycled Products.

Bryn commented, “I’m delighted to be leading the Quality and Technical functions of MBA Polymers. I’ll work hard to further improve the consistency and performance of our existing range of grades, whilst increasing our offering in line with market changes.”

Paul Mayhew, General Manager said, “We are very pleased to welcome Bryn to the team. We are commited to being a true innovator in our industry and I’m confident that Bryn will play a key role in providing and implementing high quality solutions and support for our customers.”

– ends –

Notes to editors

MBA Polymers is a world leader in the production of post-consumer recycled plastics. We source 100% of our feedstock from post-consumer goods diverted from landfill or incineration, and our proprietary process means that a single tonne of our recycled product saves approximately 4.8 tons of CO2 compared with the manufacture of virgin materials.

MBA Polymers UK is a JV with EMR (European Metal Recycling), one of the world’s largest metal recyclers with approximately 150 facilities globally. Please visit EMR’s website http://emrgroup.com/ for more information on the Group and recent developments.

Release date: September 20th 2017

Ref: PR026

For further information please contact

The Press Office
Email : pr@mbapolymers.com / marketing@emrgroup.com

Tel: 01925 715400
Web: mbapolymers.com / emrgroup.com

 

MBA Polymers UK

Sandy Lane

Worksop,

Nottinghamshire S80 3ET

England

 

EMR

Sirius House

Delta Crescent

Warrington

WA5 7NS

MBA Polymers Inc. has been taken over by Elephant Equity

Elephant Equity has taken over 100% of the shares of MBA Polymers Inc. Elephant Equity aims to further develop the recycling technology and to establish new plastic production facilities in promising markets. Elephant Equity will integrate MBA Polymers in its other waste management, recycling and engineering activities in Europe and Asia. New CEO of MBA Polymers Inc. will be Dr. Felix-Michael Weber, entrepreneur and waste-management specialist with an extensive track-record developing new businesses and global expansion.

Clearing plastic from the world’s coastlines

Hundreds of thousands of volunteers stepped up to help clear the world’s coastlines of plastic waste as part of the Ocean Conservancy’s recent International Coastal Clean-up this autumn. The annual clean-up event is the world’s largest single day volunteer effort to remove rubbish from local waterways, beaches, lakes and rivers.

This year, volunteers used an Ocean Conservancy app to document every piece of rubbish collected, logging it in the Ocean Trash Index, the world’s largest marine debris database. Some 11.5m volunteers have logged 225m items removed from beaches and waterways over the past 30 years.

Plastic ocean waste is harmful to marine environments and wildlife, and has already harmed nearly 700 species of wildlife. Every year, an estimated 8m tonnes of plastic waste flows into the ocean, the majority of it discarded by people on land. Without strong global action, the volume of plastic in the world’s oceans could soon equal the volume of fish, prompting significant environmental, economic and health issues.

“Marine debris is a serious concern for the health of our oceans,” says Allison Schutes, who manages Ocean Conservancy’s ‘Trash-Free Seas’ programme. “Fortunately, this is a problem that we can solve,” she adds, highlighting that through the clean-up event, the Ocean Conservancy gains a glimpse of the many people across the world working towards cleaner oceans.

“Recycling more plastic is vital to stemming the flow of plastic waste into the world’s oceans,” says Richard McCombs, MBA’s CEO. “By transforming post-consumer plastics into secondary raw materials, we are giving plastic waste a new lease of life and preventing it from becoming marine debris.”

Clearing plastic from the world’s coastlines

Hundreds of thousands of volunteers stepped up to help clear the world’s coastlines of plastic waste as part of the Ocean Conservancy’s recent International Coastal Clean-up this autumn. The annual clean-up event is the world’s largest single day volunteer effort to remove rubbish from local waterways, beaches, lakes and rivers.

This year, volunteers used an Ocean Conservancy app to document every piece of rubbish collected, logging it in the Ocean Trash Index, the world’s largest marine debris database. Some 11.5m volunteers have logged 225m items removed from beaches and waterways over the past 30 years.

Plastic ocean waste is harmful to marine environments and wildlife, and has already harmed nearly 700 species of wildlife. Every year, an estimated 8m tonnes of plastic waste flows into the ocean, the majority of it discarded by people on land. Without strong global action, the volume of plastic in the world’s oceans could soon equal the volume of fish, prompting significant environmental, economic and health issues.

“Marine debris is a serious concern for the health of our oceans,” says Allison Schutes, who manages Ocean Conservancy’s ‘Trash-Free Seas’ programme. “Fortunately, this is a problem that we can solve,” she adds, highlighting that through the clean-up event, the Ocean Conservancy gains a glimpse of the many people across the world working towards cleaner oceans.

“Recycling more plastic is vital to stemming the flow of plastic waste into the world’s oceans,” says Richard McCombs, MBA’s CEO. “By transforming post-consumer plastics into secondary raw materials, we are giving plastic waste a new lease of life and preventing it from becoming marine debris.”

Sweden set to introduce tax breaks for repairs

The Swedish government is set to introduce tax breaks for repairs to everything from bicycles to washing machines, reports the Guardian. The idea is that it will no longer make sense for people to discard old or broken items and replace them with new ones. If the proposals are approved by parliament in December 2016, they will become law from 1st January 2017.

In particular, the proposals attempt to address consumers’ ‘throwaway’ mentality by cutting VAT on repairs to bicycles, clothes and shoes from 25% to 12%. People would also be able to claim back half of the labour cost (from income tax) on repairs to appliances such as fridges, ovens, dishwashers and washing machines.

“We believe that this could substantially lower the cost and so make it more rational economic behaviour to repair goods,” commented Per Bolund, Sweden’s minister for financial markets and consumer affairs and one of six Green party cabinet members.

Bolund estimates that the VAT cut will reduce the cost of a repair worth 400 SEK (£36) by about 50 SEK, enough to stimulate the country’s repair industry. According to the Guardian, he hopes the tax break on appliances will spur the creation of a new home repairs service industry, providing much-needed jobs for new immigrants who lack formal education.

These incentives are part of the Swedish government’s efforts to expand its focus from reducing domestic carbon emissions to addressing the carbon footprint of products imported into the country for consumption by Swedish people.

Sweden has cut its annual carbon emissions by 23% since 1990, and generates more than half of its electricity from renewable sources. However, emissions linked to consumption have risen. Bolund said the policy reflects international trends such as the ‘maker movement’ and the sharing economy, both of which have strong followings there.

“The Swedish government’s proposal to introduce tax breaks for repairs is highly commendable,” says MBA’s CEO, Richard McCombs. “Similar initiatives could be replicated across Europe including incentives for companies to source more recycled materials for new products.”

Five minutes with Brian Riise, MBA’s Director of Research and Development…

1. Could you describe your role and responsibilities at MBA Polymers?

Since coming to MBA Polymers over 18 years ago, my main focus has been on developing high quality products suitable for a broad range of customers. This has included developing novel separation processes as well as formulations with suitable additives. My role has more recently expanded to providing technical and marketing support to our manufacturing plants. I give guidance on operating separation and compounding equipment, and ensuring reliability of product testing, as well as supporting technical sales, and presenting at conferences. Over the past decade, I have also been responsible for managing MBA Polymers’ intellectual property, including our patent portfolio and protection of trade secrets.

2. How does MBA work with its customers to tailor the characteristics of their products?

The first step is to make sure the customer is seeking one of the plastics we produce. We then determine the customer’s requirements in terms of price, colour, mechanical properties, thermal properties, flammability etc. We compare their requirements with our base material’s properties, and use our knowledge of additives and processes to assess the technical and economic feasibility of developing a suitable product. If the development is feasible, we produce a ‘developmental’ grade (or grades) for the customer to test. In some cases, this means collaborating with customers over several months to provide a grade that meets all their requirements.

3. Could you share an example?

One customer required a polypropylene product that was dark grey in colour, had a high melt flow rate and had to pass various mechanical tests including drop tests and creep resistance. We drew on our extensive experience of fine-tuning our products’ characteristics to control the melt flow rate and use of additives, producing the right colour and improving the creep resistance.

4. What plastics recycling challenges do you face and how are you working to overcome them?

One of the biggest product quality challenges is limiting the volume of non-melting contaminants in the final product. We can eliminate the vast majority, but there are sometimes tiny specks that end up in the products. We take steps to ensure that our separation equipment is in order, and work with engineers and operators at each of our facilities to make sure they are operating the equipment correctly.

5. What are your ambitions for the business?

With customers increasingly keen to order more recycled plastics, in line with their circular economy or sustainability targets, there is a huge opportunity for expanding the business. In order to meet customer demands, we will continue developing new sources of raw material for recycling. We will improve our product quality, expand the range of plastics we recover (as we have already done with PC/ABS), and strengthen our ability to provide high level technical support to our customers.

Shifting gears: Opportunities in car recycling

Plastic from end-of-life vehicles (ELV) is a largely untapped resource. At the MBA Polymers’ site in Worksop the plant has the capability to process in excess of 50,000mT tonnes of ELV plastic per year, helping to create valuable secondary raw materials for the automotive and consumer goods industries.

In November 2016, MBA’s General Manager, Paul Mayhew, addressed a packed audience of manufacturers and plastics recovery and recycling experts, highlighting the opportunities of recycling more ELV plastics.

Paul began by profiling EMR’s global recycling business, explaining that the company’s work spans 165 sites worldwide and it has invested some $300m in car recycling in the UK and US over the past four years.

He highlighted the scale of the auto recycling challenge, underlining that some 7.8m cars reach end of life annually in Europe. Meanwhile, as the world’s middle classes continue to expand, global car ownership is set to increase from 1bn cars produced in 2010 to some 2.5bn in 2050.

There are clearly millions of tonnes of ELV plastic available. So how do we go about capturing and recycling it? And importantly, how can we create a greater demand for recycled plastics within the automotive industry and beyond?

Introducing MBA Polymers

Paul explained that EMR separates and recycles diverse ASR materials, including metals (ferrous and non-ferrous), recycled plastic (through its joint venture with MBA Polymers) and aggregates. It also creates electricity through a gasification process at its Oldbury plant.

Focusing on the MBA story in particular, Paul charted the company’s history from its founder Mike Biddle’s garage to the opening of plastics processing plants in China, Austria and the UK. Globally, MBA Polymers now processes some 105,000 tonnes of ASR and post-consumer electronic waste annually.

Navigating the technical challenges of recycling ELV plastics

Highlighting the challenges of recycling ELV plastics, Paul pointed to the wide variety of plastic types, customers’ and regulators’ high purity requirements, customers’ high performance requirements. Additionally, he explained that there are residual automotive fluids in plastics, as well as paints, coatings and barrier layers. In some plastics, MBA also finds ‘legacy’ substances of concern (such as heavy metals).

Plastic constitutes some 21% of the total, with the remainder comprising foam and textiles (31%), fine materials (16%), rubber (13%) metal and wires (11%), wood (7%) and other materials (2%).

Recycling ELV plastics: how it works

Firstly, it’s important to separate out the plastic from the rest of the automotive shredder residue (ASR). Among the plastics, there are multiple types. It’s therefore vital to be able to separate and recycle each polymer effectively.

Plastics found in automotive shredder residue

  • Polypropylene (PP)
  • High density polyethylene (HDPE)
  • Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS)
  • High impact polystyrene (HIPS) – mostly from other shredded products such as large appliances
  • Polyamides (PA6, PA66, PA12)
  • Polycarbonate (PC)
  • Blends of PC with ABS (PC/ABS)

Next up, Paul covered how MBA separates, processes, extrudes and pelletises its five plastic polymers – PP, HDPE, ABS, HIPS and filled PP plastic – highlighting the innovative technology used at each stage. Importantly, all MBA’s products are RoHS and REACH-compliant, and any residual materials are recovered, sold or incinerated. Nothing goes to landfill.

MBA’s experienced quality control team conducts rigorous laboratory checks of finished products, following processes certified to ISO standards. Paul explained that the company works in partnership with its customers to ensure they achieve the required performance, quality and consistency.

Challenges and opportunities for ELV recycling

Increasingly, Paul told the audience, MBA and EMR are working with carmakers to identify opportunities for recycled plastic to be used in new vehicles. In order for the automotive industry to take full advantage of these opportunities, there are some challenges to address, he added.

Challenges

  • The automotive sector is tending to adopt more composite materials (e.g. GF, carbon fibre), for light-weighting purposes, however, these can be hard to recycle using existing technologies.
  • Carmakers need greater commercial or regulatory incentives to specify recycled plastics for new products.
  • While more vehicle manufacturers are using recycled plastic, they tend to do so within the context of closing the loop on automotive waste, rather than due to the performance characteristics of the recycled material.

Regulators often change the legal limits for legacy additives that can be found in recycled plastics, which has the effect of lowering the volumes of plastic that can be recycled.

Opportunities

  • There’s an opportunity for the plastics recycling industry to collaborate to push for greater incentives for carmakers to use recycled materials, thereby boosting demand for recycled plastics. For example, rules on sustainable procurement could prioritise more recycled content, while for companies could be rewarded for using more recycled plastic through tax breaks.
  • Manufacturers could work with recyclers as part of their sustainability and circular economy efforts to understand the recyclability of diverse materials at the design stage.
  • More metal recyclers are investing in post-shredder treatment in order to achieve the EU’s 95% recycling target for ELVs, which will increase the availability of ELV plastics.

Finding smarter ways to manage plastics beats switching to alternative materials

Replacing plastics in consumer goods and packaging with a mix of alternative materials would increase environmental costs almost fourfold from $139bn to $533bn annually, finds a new study by environmental consultancy Trucost.

Using natural capital accounting, Trucost has built on previous plastics reports to conduct an environmental ‘cost comparison’. It looked at the relative costs of using materials such as paper, tin, aluminium and glass compared to plastic (to perform the same function). It also explored whether taking a more sustainable approach to using plastics in consumer goods and packaging might cost the Earth less in the long term.

The rise of plastic

Plastic is an affordable, versatile material with many uses across food packaging, drinking water distribution and medical devices. As demand for plastic has grown, its production has increased from 15m tonnes in 1964 to 311m tonnes in 2014. However, with many plastic products and packaging becoming waste, rather than being reused or transformed into secondary raw materials, plastic pollution has also escalated dramatically. In 2014, Trucost and the Plastic Disclosure Project estimated the cost of plastic pollution to marine ecosystems at $13bn, with the consumer goods sector creating $75bn of environmental impacts through its use of plastic.

Taking a smarter approach to plastics

The report concludes that finding smarter ways to manage the manufacture, transport and use of plastic is more environmentally sustainable than replacing plastic with alternative materials. Using plastics in consumer goods costs the environment 3.8 times less than alternative materials would do, it says. This is because opting for plastic, companies can use a quarter of the volume of material they would need if they were to use alternative materials for the same purpose.

“Our findings run contrary to commonly held perceptions that the environmental impacts of plastic can be best addressed by switching to alternative materials,” says Dr. Richard Mattison, CEO of Trucost. “In fact, our research shows that designing, managing and using plastics more efficiently, in a way that respects circular economy principles, is by far the most environmentally sustainable course of action.”

Importantly, moving to a circular economy could significantly reduce the environmental costs of plastics. In particular, this could be achieved by increasing the recycling of post-consumer plastics to 55% and lowering landfill (to a maximum of 10%). If these targets were to be implemented across Europe and North America, the environmental cost of plastics could be reduced by more than $7.9bn in net terms. Meanwhile, it takes 80% less energy to produce recycled plastic than it does to produce virgin plastic.

“Companies in multiple sectors are lowering their environmental footprints by opting for recycled plastics that offer the same performance characteristics as their virgin plastic equivalents,” says Richard McCombs, CEO of MBA Polymers. “Using advanced technology to recycle plastic also helps to stem the flow of plastic waste to landfills, incinerators and oceans.”

Indeed, capturing plastic waste before it reaches the ocean could cut environment costs to the world’s marine life by over $2.1bn, the report estimates. This would mean improving waste collection and management, particularly in Asia (which it suggests could be responsible for more than 70% of plastic consumer goods waste entering the ocean), and increasingly in Africa. Improving waste collection in Asia could cut the volume of plastic waste entering the oceans annually by more than 45%.

Trucost also identified significant opportunities for plastic to be manufactured and transported more efficiently. The environmental cost of producing plastic for the consumer goods sector stood at more than $60bn in 2015, with the transport of these materials adding a further $53bn. The global plastics industry could deliver $33bn of environmental cost savings, the report suggests, by doubling its use of renewable electricity, using more efficient packaging designs and increasing the fuel efficiency of plastic transportation by 20%.

Achieving a circular economy in Europe: Introducing the plastics industry ‘wish list’

Leading plastics recyclers, including MBA Polymers, joined with major waste management associations in November to announce a shared ‘wish list’ of steps required from EU policy-makers to catalyse greater recycling of waste cars and electronics.

“We’ll see an increasing level of discussion and debate about the shape of the EU’s Circular Economy Package over the next two years,” says Richard McCombs, MBA’s CEO. We’re making a plea to leaders, innovators and key influencers involved in the debate by sharing some clear recommendations that could help to drive change and promote the circular economy.”

The current state of play

The production of new vehicles is steadily rising. There are currently an estimated 275m vehicles registered in the EU, representing an impressive ‘urban mine’ of materials. Plastic (or elastomer material) – made primarily from non-renewable oil-based resources – comprises some 20 to 25% of the average vehicle. Meanwhile, of the 9.5m tonnes of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) generated in Europe each year (including 1.2m plastics), only five to six tonnes are recycled. The technology exists to recycle 50% of the plastics derived from waste electronics, while the rest could be used for energy recovery.

Current ELV and WEEE targets in Europe:

  • ELV: 95% of an ELV should be recovered with 85% of materials recovered
  • WEEE: 80% of consumer electronics should be recovered (with 70% of materials recovered) and 85% large domestic appliances should be recovered (with 80% of materials recovered). These rates change over time.

One of the key barriers to up-scaling the volumes of plastic currently recycled is that vehicle and electronics manufactures in Europe currently hold the responsibility for capturing post-consumer waste and attempting to recycle or recover their products. In the main, manufacturers are responding to this by introducing take-back systems. However, this does not go far enough to catalyse a circular economy model whereby products would be designed for reuse, recovery or recycling, and waste materials would be systematically re-captured and channelled into new products.

What’s needed to make the circular economy a reality is for everyone involved in the product development and manufacturing process – product designers, materials purchasers, marketing managers and production engineers – to consider end-of-life product responsibility right from the outset. There is currently no clear link between the ‘take-back’, collection and recycling of waste materials and the design, procurement and sales of new products.

In particular, it’s vital for companies to consider the chemical and physical make-up of their products at the design stage – how could each material be recovered, reused or recycled? In the plastics recycling industry, one of the challenges we face in recycling post-consumer plastics is that there are strict rules – with ever-changing thresholds – governing which substances can be safely recycled. If companies were to factor this in at the outset, there would be more ‘allowable’ material to recycle.

The opportunity

This huge mountain of durable goods, destined to enter future waste streams, represents a valuable ‘urban mine’ of materials that could be transformed safely into raw materials for new products. This requires an efficient collection and recycling infrastructure. While innovators, such as MBA Polymers, have invested in developing the technology to recycle these end-of-life products, there is now a great opportunity to capitalise on the knowledge and experience of ‘first-movers’ like ourselves, and catalyse a sector-wide transition to a circular model.

Plastics recycling industry European ‘wish list’

Procuring and transporting complex mixes of raw materials across borders for the production of secondary raw materials by compliant recyclers within the EU should become more straightforward, more rapid and less costly.

Additionally, it is important to note that there is a complex web of legislation (REACH, ROHS for products, POP, WSR, WFD for waste) to navigate, which can be a barrier to investment and/or scaling up. While the industry can reduce the presence of harmful substances in secondary raw materials as much as possible, it cannot eliminate all substances of concern entirely. Regulators must recognise this when setting new thresholds for raw materials, particularly as there are still at least 15 years of in-use cars still to recycle.

Here are our industry’s key recommendations for change:

  • A fast-track notification procedure should be developed to allow compliant recyclers to get better access to complex input materials from other countries within the EU.
  • The Circular Economy Package should encourage communication between recyclers and producers by rewarding companies that use traceable post-consumer recycled (PCR) content in their products.
  • The EU should set realistic thresholds for substances of concern and invite the recycling industry to be part of the discussion, ahead of any upcoming changes. For example, regulators could exempt PCR materials from certain thresholds within a defined timeframe, or allow plastics containing banned additives to be used in new long-life products.

For the full ‘wish list’, please click here.