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.

I am pleased to offer our MBA Polymers newsletter for Q3 2016. In this last quarter, we continue to see unsettling events likely to affect MBA Polymers, the plastics recycling industry and the global economy. The election of Donald Trump and his publically stated position against climate change will create uncertainty for a green economy for at least the next four years.

However, MBA Polymers continues to remain optimistic that the tipping point for the plastics recycling industry is close at hand. Our customers are continuing to embrace the circular economy and recognise that recycling is one of its key hallmarks. Additionally, the European Union (EU) is starting to adopt a more positive legislative approach to recycling. MBA is one of a number leading waste and recycling organisations to have issued a joint plastics recycling industry ‘wish list’ of vital steps to help accelerate the transition to a circular economy. I recently presented this statement to product designers at the Plasticity Conference in London.

MBA Polymers has continuously supported and benefited from our R&D efforts under our Director of R&D, Brian Riise. He has been with the company for over 18 years and believes that MBA has a major role to play in meeting manufacturers’ growing demands for recycled material. Brian is a frequently asked to speak at plastics conferences. You can find all the events at which MBA is speaking here.

Elsewhere in this edition, we also explain why finding smarter ways to manage plastics beats switching to alternative materials. We also cover the latest Ocean Conservancy coastal clean-up and explore why Sweden is giving tax breaks for repairs.

Finally, don’t miss our founder, Mike Biddle, speaking at the Electronics Recycling Congress in Salzburg, Austria, in January 2017.

Thank you for your support and interest in plastics recycling and the circular economy, and please don’t hesitate to approach me with any questions.

Respectfully yours,

Richard McCombs, CEO

rmccombs@mbapolymers.com

Purpose

This document summarises the shared opinion of some key players in the plastics materials recycling sector from complex wastes of durable products such as End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV’s) and Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) concerning the market drivers for change needed to promote a transition towards a ‘true’ circular materials economy in the industry.

In the next 2 years we will see an increasing level of discussion and debate about the shape of the EU’s Circular Economy Package. This document should be seen as a plea to leaders, innovators and key influencers involved in that debate by setting out a simple set of measures that will help to drive change in a positive direction to promote the Circular Economy.

Key Facts

Automotive – There are an estimated approximately 275 Mio motor vehicles registered for use on the road network of the EU member states and this represents an impressive urban mine of materials. New vehicle production continues to grow steadily with quickly changing technologies. The average mass of each new motor vehicle is approximately 1.3 tonnes, of which currently about 20-25% consists of plastics or elastomer material which is made primarily from non-renewable oil- based resources. The annual plastics consumption for the car industry in Europe is close to 4 Mio tonnes per annum. The currently reported quantity of End-of-Life Vehicles (ELVs) consists of 6.3 Mio ELVs per year and this represents a quantity of ELV plastics of some 1.2 Mio tonnes. It is estimated that the potential for use of Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) plastics used in new-build cars can be as high as 5% of vehicle mass, which would have a huge environmental benefit.

Vehicle parc development in Europe 2013

Electrical & Electronics – The quantity of Waste from Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) is some 9.5 Mio tonnes per annum, of which quantity approximately 5-6 Mio tonnes are being recycled in Europe. Some 1.2 Mio tonnes of this material are plastics materials. Technology exists to recycle over 50 % of this material into Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR plastics) and the remaining Graph of the composition of WEEE shredder residues quantity which cannot be recycled as material can be used for energy recovery. A recent Life-Cycle Analysis comparing the production of virgin plastics with the production of PCR plastics illustrates the benefits of using PCR plastics.

The total demand for plastics for the production of Electric and Electronic Equipment (EEE) is 2.5 Mio Tonnes per annum.

The practical application of PCR plastics for the production of new Electric and Electronic Equipment has been proven in a significant number of cases.

Current Materials Recycling Model

The producers of automobiles and electronics across Europe have been given the responsibility for the end-of-life capture, collection and recycling or recovery of the products that they put on the market.

Under this Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation the focus is placed upon ‘polluter pays’ by making branded manufacturers and importers share the financial burden of the cost of collection and recycling. There are several variations on the way this is implemented across Member states, but most link the brand’s current market share in tonnage terms to the cost of collection, treatment and recovery measured at the point of waste collection, which responsibility is outsourced to take- back or similar systems in many of the cases.

Current legislative measures have already placed high targets on the percentage of end-of-life products that must be recycled or recovered.

The European ELV directive prescribes a total recovery rate of 95% of which 85% as (material) recycling rate and the European WEEE directive as varying recovery and recycling targets depending on the category of WEEE and these targets are growing over time. Consumer Electronics and IT currently have a recovery rate target of 80% with a (material) recycling rate of to 70% and Large Domestic Appliances 85% recovery and 80% (material) recycling rate.

This ‘arms-length’ approach to ‘responsibility for end-of-life’ has failed to create a circular flow of recycled materials back into new products. Most manufacturers have transferred their responsibilities for collection and treatment to take back schemes. The collection and treatment is considered a cost factor and therefore continious price pressure on these services is eminent. Therewith the compliance with the Directives has become an annual accounting exercise. Graph of the missing link in the circular economy There is virtually no involvement by product designers, materials purchasers, marketing managers, production engineers in the process of satisfying end-of-life product responsibility. The disconnect between the return flow of materials – take-back, collection and recycling – and the design, procurement and sales of new durable products can be seen as the “missing link” in the Circular Economy.

The long lifetime of products in the vehicle and electrical goods markets (i.e. 2 years to 20 years) also means that there is a long delay between making a product and that item reaching its end-of-life stage, where the materials can be captured, separated and recovered for recycling or re-use. This increases the level of ‘disconnect’ between those people involved in design and development of new products and the growing industry involved in recycling of materials from old products (unlike packaging materials, where the working lifetime is measured in days or weeks and forward thinking businesses can get very rapid benefits by tapping into the readily available flow of plastics materials being recycled from household waste collections).

Manufacturing industries are to a great extent still operating a linear model for sourcing and use of raw materials to create a this growing volume of durable products.

This huge mountain of durable goods – destined to enter the waste stream at some stage in the future – represents a predictable, know composition urban mine of material that could and should enter into an efficient collection and recycling infrastructure that is laid out to deliver these materials back into manufacturers as a sustainable and stable flow of Post-Consumer Recycled secondary raw materials.

The plastics recycling industry for these complex raw materials is capable of producing products that comply with product legislation. However, the ever changing thresholds for an ever increasing amount of substances under REACH and POPS legislation form a considerable burden for this new industry with a risk that the investment levels will come to a halt. Legacy issues require a holistic approach starting at product design stage. Whilst the industry is capable of reducing the legacy of substances to the greatest possible extent, the recycling industry will not be able to eliminate all substances of concern completely. This must be recognized whilst setting new thresholds for raw materials, whereby it is important that there is an alignment of these thresholds for wastes and for products. For some substances reasonable exemptions for recycling might be required.

Continuously changing threshold values for ever more substances in the EU legislation impacts the development of a recycling industry infrastructure negatively and hence has a negative impact on the development of a recycling society and circular economy that the EU Commission is seeking. Today many of the valuable raw materials embedded in these durable goods are still exported out of Europe, often illegally. The European Waste Shipment Regulation’s rules on notifications of “non- listed wastes” – many of the mixed materials from these durable goods are considered to be notifiable wastes – sets rules and procedures to the transboundary shipments of these raw materials that are often prohibitively complex, long and expensive. These rules and procedures for these raw materials are the same as what is required for most hazardous wastes. Much of this potential input for compliant European recyclers therefore leaves the European Union, as the enforcement of these rules for the export out of the EU is virtually non-existent.

While many innovative, entrepreneurial, technology leaders have taken the early-stage steps to invest in the new processing industry to recycle these durable end-of-life products, there is now a great opportunity to capitalize on the learnings and experience of those ‘first-movers’ and to help catalyse a transition across the sector to a much more circular material flow economic model.

Creating drivers for change

Speaking from the combined experience of over 25 years of actually operating within the EU and global recycling industry for these products, key players in the sector have shared the following points as a ‘wish list’ of principles that must be included in any new set of measures and legislative instruments put in place to help deliver a circular economy in the sector.

The Plastics Recycling Industry Wish-List

Procedures for the procurement and transboundary shipment of complex mixes of raw materials for the production of secondary raw materials by compliant recyclers within the EU should be made easier, quicker and cheaper. Pre-consented and verified facilities within the EU have a special status, which should be recognized by the competent authorities in country of despatch. A FAST-TRACK NOTIFICATION procedure should be developed to allow these compliant recyclers to get better access to these complex input materials from other countries within the EU.

The primary focus of any new measures should AIM AT PULLING THE DEMAND FOR Post- Consumer Recycled content in order to convert the linear supply chain to a circular material flow model. The industry already has high targets in place for the collection of end-of-life products and with high recovery and material recycling targets set in those regulations. The missing link in the Circular Economy is the communication between the recycling companies and the producers of durable products – the Circular Economy Package should encourage this by rewarding the incorporation and use of traceable Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) content back into new products. This could take the form of:

  • Public Green Procurement rules to enforce a change towards products that contain well-defined quantities of PCR content. This to cover durable product purchases, electrical and electronic goods, vehicles and construction materials in addition to the ‘easy-wins’ in short life consumables such as printing paper, packaging (Example – EPEAT in USA federal law).
  • Private sector – drive Member states to implement positive, reward-based drivers to encourage product manufacturers to specify and use recycled materials (especially plastics). Measured and proven levels of PCR use should be encouraged by positive benefits accruing to those companies who make the changes (e.g. increased R&D and/or capital investment tax allowances linked to higher levels of traceable PCR content in new products).

 

Enabling this to happen in Europe

One key area that needs to be recognized during the envisaged ‘transition period’ from a linear manufacturing economy to one that embodies CIRCULARITY, is a pragmatic recognition that the huge urban mine of materials that is already in place will contain some materials and additives that are no longer seen as desirable in modern materials (i.e. at least 15 years of in-use cars or some electronic products to be processed when reaching end-of-life).

The legal situation that applies to the recycling industry with both waste and product legislations that apply (REACH, ROHS for products, POP, WSR, WFD for waste) is extremely complex. For example, the Waste Framework Directive does not allow any mixing of materials with the purpose to reduce the levels of these substances of concern.

Technology is available to produce secondary raw materials made from durable goods that meet current product legislations. However legal initiatives and thresholds for particular substances change continuously. There are pressures to define new thresholds for certain substances – such as some brominated flame retardants – to levels beyond those that can be measured reliably or to levels that can be reached technologically for secondary raw materials.

The recycling industry therefore calls for realistic THRESHOLDS for substances of concern and for a continuous exchange of views between the legislator and the recycling industry if changes are planned. In some cases, a solution can be found by creating exemptions for certain thresholds for PCR materials for well-defined periods of time. In other cases, the most desirable route forward is to re-incorporate the captured plastics containing such additives back into new long-life products (e.g. stabilizers in PVC window frames).

Therefore, a key addendum point in the industry wish-list is:

  • Regulators across member states to take a pragmatic and balanced approach to the allowable levels of residual trace legacy additives remaining inside recycled plastics during the extended period of transition to a circular material flow. (maybe next 10 – 20 years)
  • Set levels of allowable trace chemical additives that are realistic in terms of the risk posed and sensible in terms of actually being detected by laboratory instruments in general use.

 

The following waste treatment associations support this wish list:

Emmanuel Katrakis – EuRIC
Mail: ekatrakis@euric-aisbl.eu
Euric logo
Norbert Zonneveld – EERA
Mail: nz@eera-recyclers.com
Eera logo
Francisco Morcillo – British Plastics Federation
Mail: fmorcillo@bpf.co.uk
British plastics federation logo

 

Plastic Recycling Companies processing complex plastic mixes from ELV and WEEE:

Richard McCombs – MBA Polymers
Mail: rmccombs@mbapolymers.com
MBA polymers logo
Keith Freegard – Axion Polymers
Mail: kfreegard@axionrecycling.com
Axion polymers logo
Chris Slijkhuis – Müller-Guttenbrunn Group
Mail: slijkhuis@mgg-recycling.com
Muller guttenbrunn group logo
Luc Waignein – Galloo
Mail: luc.waignein@galloo.com
Galloo logo

I am pleased to offer our MBA Polymers Newsletter for Q2 2016. In this last quarter, we have seen remarkable events likely to affect MBA Polymers, the plastics recycling industry and the global economy. In particular, the Brexit vote is changing the landscape as we speak and will continue to do so for the next two years.

However, MBA Polymers remains optimistic that the tipping point for the plastics recycling industry is close at hand. We continue to receive interest from major electronics and automotive companies, as well as end consumers. Most recently, we have become the first company to successfully manufacture and commercialise post-consumer PC/ABS pellets made from shredded waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).

MBA Polymers benefits greatly from our dedicated team of workers and no-one is a better example than our Director of Engineering, Jim Zechinati. As Jim states so well in our latest team interview, “…we can leverage our technical advantages and global plant locations to serve our customers and expand the use of post-consumer recycled polymers throughout the world.”

One of Jim’s responsibilities is to monitor MBA’s safety reports. I am pleased to share that our most recent data shows a steady reduction in our Recordable Accident Rate.

Accidents rate chart showing reduction in accidents

Elsewhere in this edition, we explore how 40 major businesses and cities are set to re-think the future of plastic, revisit the pressing issue of ocean plastic waste, and share how India is using a plastic polymer-based glue to create cost-effective, durable roads.

Please also join us for our founder Mike Biddle’s upcoming talk at the Plasticity Forum in London in September. Mike also recently spoke at the Plasticity Forum in Shanghai. You can find all the events at which MBA is speaking here.

Finally, one of the challenges of the plastics recycling industry is EU legislation, which regularly defines new threshold values for more substances, and can have a negative impact on our ability to develop new recycled materials. This seems to run contrary to the European Commission’s circular economy ambitions. In response, Chris Slijkhuis, E-Waste Recycling and Public Affairs Director at Müller-Guttenbrunn Group, Keith Freegard, Director at Axion Polymers, and I are organising an industry effort to present the following proposals to the EC:

  • Realistic thresholds for substances of concern and a continuous exchange of views between the legislator and the recycling industry if changes are planned.
  • Regulators across member states should take a pragmatic and balanced approach to the allowable levels of residual trace legacy additives remaining inside recycled plastics during the transition to a circular material flow.
  • Similarly, it is important to set realistic levels of allowable trace chemical additives in terms of the risks posed and potential detection by widely used laboratory instruments.

If you are interested in adding your support to this effort, please contact me.

Thank you for your support and interest in topics important to our company, and please don’t hesitate to approach me with any questions.

Respectfully yours,

Richard McCombs, CEO
rmccombs@mbapolymers.com

Jim Zechinati explains how MBA’s Engineering team collaborates with customers to deliver enhanced performance characteristics, and shares his thoughts on the challenges and opportunities for a global recycling company in a fast-moving world.

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

As Director of Engineering, I’m responsible for overseeing the efforts of MBA’s Engineering team. We provide technical support to MBA’s three recycling plants in areas including R&D, product development, process development, plant engineering, capital projects and customer technical support.

 

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

Our raw material derives from a broad range of plastic-rich waste streams. Our first challenge is to make highly pure polymer grades with consistent properties suitable for a great many applications. These include various grades of ABS, PS, PP, PE, filled PP, and now PCABS. When our customers require diverse performance characteristics, we work closely with them to develop products that meet their needs. Often, this means developing additional processing steps or property-enhancing additives. The MBA Engineering Team formulates any additives and tests the plastics at the customer’s facility. In this way, we have formed close working relationships with many large manufacturers and brands.

 

3. Could you share an example?

One major manufacturer uses our polymers to produce office equipment. In some of its latest applications, our materials have been approved for large visual parts that require a Class A molded surface. Historically, these applications would be reserved for virgin resins, but through our process development efforts, we have been able to achieve the exceptionally high purity required to fulfil this requirement.

 

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

Plastics recycling is a rapidly evolving industry in an ever-changing business landscape. The challenges we face include price competition from virgin resin made with cheap oil, changes to laws such as China’s Green Fence, consistency in raw material quality and pricing from our source suppliers, and customer requests for improved product performance. To maintain our competitive edge, we continuously improve our plant efficiencies and identify cost-cutting opportunities. Similarly, we embrace the opportunity to exceed customer expectations and differentiate ourselves by providing exceptional products and customer service.

 

5. What are your ambitions for the business?

I believe there are tremendous opportunities for MBA to grow as a leader in the plastics recycling industry. Major manufacturers need resin supply partners capable of providing large volumes of consistently high quality recycled resins on a global basis. MBA is one of the few companies able to deliver this. Additionally, we can leverage our technical advantages and global plant locations to serve our customers and expand the use of post-consumer recycled polymers throughout the world.

Ahead of World Ocean Day in June, the Guardian reported that biodegradable plastic is not an appropriate solution for the growing ocean plastic waste issue, according to top UN scientists. Contrary to popular belief, biodegradable plastics do not break down easily, remaining instead as debris in the ocean, finds a UN report, just like other more ‘mainstream’ types of plastic.

Commenting on the issue, Jacqueline McGlade, chief scientist at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), told the Guardian: “A lot of plastics labelled biodegradable, like shopping bags, will only break down in temperatures of 50°C… They’re not buoyant, so they’re going to sink… they’re not going to be exposed to UV and break down.”

More than 300m tonnes of plastic were produced in 2014, and this could reach nearly 2,000m tonnes by 2050, the UN estimates. While the exact amount in the world’s oceans is unknown, the report concludes that plastic debris in the ocean is now everywhere, even as far away as the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean. It spreads via currents to oceans from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and includes everything from fishing nets (that can ensnare marine mammals) to smaller fragments that break down in the ocean. Known as ‘microplastics’, they gradually form a ‘plastic soup’ that is consumed by marine life and gradually makes its way into the food chain.

Earlier this year, some 29 sperm whales were found stranded in shores around the North Sea. Scientists discovered that the stomachs of 13 of these whales, which beached in Germany, were full of plastic debris, including a 13-metre-long fishing net and a 70cm piece of plastic from a car.

The chief solution to ocean plastic waste is better waste collection and recycling, particularly in the developing world, according to the UN. However, the additives used in biodegradable plastic can make it harder to recycle, potentially harming the environment. The report’s authors highlight that previous warnings about ocean plastic waste, originating as early as the 1970s, had not been taken seriously. However, it concludes, there is now a “moral argument” to stop further plastic pollution in our oceans. Marine litter should be considered a “common concern for all humanity”.

A new film documentary, A Plastic Ocean, aims to raise awareness of the dangers of ocean plastic waste. The producers, an international team of adventurers, scientists and environmentalists, have sought to highlight the environmental impacts of our disposable lifestyle. Over four years, they captured footage of marine life and plastic pollution and its ultimate consequences for human health, filming in 20 locations including some of the world’s remotest waters. Importantly, they also cover technologies and policy solutions that stand to make a positive difference.

In Chennai, India, a ‘plastic road’ in the city’s busy Nungambakkam area has withstood a major flood, several monsoons, heat waves and non-stop traffic in the form of cars, trucks and auto rickshaws. Built in 2002, the road in Jambulingam Street was one of the country’s first plastic roads. It is made of tar, held together with a polymer-based glue made from shredded plastic waste, and unlike conventional roads, it has not developed any cracks or potholes.

The idea of using a plastic polymer-based glue to bind India’s roads first came about 15 years ago in response to the growing problem of plastic litter in the streets (including discarded plastic cups, single-use plastic bags and foam packaging). It has proved to be a durable solution, winning support among scientists and policymakers in India as well as neighbouring countries like Bhutan. Today, there are more than 21,000 miles of plastic roads in India, mostly in rural areas, with approximately half of them in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Commercially-made polymer-modified asphalts are already in use in Europe and North America. Often made from virgin polymers (and sometimes ground tyres), they are highly versatile, tending not to buckle in extreme heat. The ‘melting point’ for plastic roads is around 66°C, compared to 50°C for conventional roads.

Plastic roads are also cost-effective, making use of waste as opposed to virgin materials. Every kilometre of plastic road uses the equivalent of 1m plastic bags, saves around one tonne of asphalt and costs roughly 8% less than a conventional road. The first motorway (connecting Chennai with Villupuram) using a plastic-polymer based glue was tested in March 2016, and is expected to reduce construction costs by 50%.

However, using plastics in roads can have an effect on the environment in the long term. Old or poorly built roads may shed plastic fragments into the soil and waterways when they deteriorate. These ‘microplastics’ attract pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and can have an impact on their surroundings.

Despite this, the Indian government the Indian government announced in November 2015 that plastic roads would be the default method of construction for most city streets, part of a multibillion-dollar overhaul of the country’s roads and highways. Urban areas with more than 500,000 people will now be required to construct roads using waste plastic. This is also helping to create employment, since small companies are springing up to shred plastic waste needed to make the glue.

MBA Polymers Austria continues to perform well, despite the current low prices for plastics. This is largely due to the hard work and dedication of Wolfgang Ganser, MBA Austria’s General Manager, and his team, many of whom have worked at MBA Austria since its inception in 2005. They continuously seek to improve MBA’s technology, increasing efficiency and yields.

So let’s meet Wolfgang.

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

As General Manager of MBA’s Austrian facility, I have many responsibilities. Of course, the most important is to deliver results. Beyond that, I’m responsible for helping to increase the yield and output of the plant, including by developing new materials, in order to maintain our competitive advantage. I’m therefore also close to the sales strategy, as I need to understand how our products are used by customers – mostly global manufacturers – and how they could be used by other companies.

Before joining MBA, I worked as a Division Controller in diverse industries, including the packaging and automotive sectors. I joined MBA in 2006, excited by the idea of plastics recycling. I took on the role of General Manager in 2012. We have a great, highly motivated team, focused on quality and good customer service, and we’re learning all the time. For example, in addition to working with a complex raw material stream, we also find new ways to separate and derive value from other e-waste materials, such as metals.

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

It’s fundamental to analyse the customer’s requirements and understand how we can adapt the characteristics of our products to meet their needs. We begin with products from our existing portfolio, and if necessary, we develop alternative products, such as PP with glass fibre or even plastics with different mechanical properties or colour.

3. Could you share an example?

We are currently working on an FPP grade comprised of 40% glass fibre. It’s for a part that will be visible to the end consumer, so it’s vital that the material looks pristine. Collaborating with our customer, we went through several iterations of the material. We ran tests on the material at our laboratory, and the customer ran ‘real world’ tests in the relevant application. In this way, we’re refining the colour properties of the material, darkening them to suit the customer’s product.

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

The challenges begin with sourcing. There are many legislative restrictions in place, relating to the transport of materials or chemical contaminations, for example. It’s therefore important to work with trusted suppliers. For example, we have a dedicated process to recycle WEEE-materials from metal recyclers. The composition of materials also poses a constant challenge in terms of increasing yield and efficiency, particularly with so many plastic polymers available. We also focus on helping customers to understand the benefits of our products. In many cases, we can offer alternatives with different properties that perform just as well as their existing materials, so it’s important for us to understand how best to communicate this.

5. What are your ambitions for the business?

We have a detailed business plan for the next few years. In particular, we aim to increase the recovery rate for our plant up to 70%. We have defined a strategy to achieve this, and will seek to reach an output to 35,000 tonnes annually. We currently produce 22,000 tonnes annually. We will also build on our successful entry in the automotive industry.

This story was originally published by Recycling Today

Jim [Keefe, publisher of the Recycling Today Media Group] asked me to do a high-level stage setting: where are we in terms of challenges and opportunities facing the recycling industry, specifically the plastics recycling industry.

Just two years ago I decided to step out of the company I founded—the hardest decision I ever made but probably the most rewarding because now I get to tackle a wider range of solutions all over the world, trying to figure out how to indeed close the loop and make plastics part of the circular economy.

What I’d like to do is set the stage for what are the challenges and opportunities in making this happen. I am going to do that with four questions:

  1. Why are we here?
  2. Where are we?
  3. Where do we want to go?
  4. And, most importantly, how do we get there?

ONE: WHY ARE WE HERE?

How many remember [The Graduate] from the 1960s? What was the one word of advice to this recent college graduate?

Plastics.

Whoever put that line in there knew what he or she was talking about.

You remember that line because it was funny. Who in the ’60s in their right mind would have gone into the chemical or plastics industry? It wasn’t sexy or hip.

This is another reason that we’re here. [Biddle begins playing a clip of comedian George Carlin].

“The planet will be here for a long, long, long time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself because that’s what it does—It is a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover,” Carlin says. “The earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic.

“The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic,” Carlin continues in the clip. “Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably just sees plastic as another one of its children.

“It could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place: It wanted plastic for itself, didn’t know how to make it [and] needed us. It could be the answer to our age-old philosophical question, Why are we here? Plastic,” the clip of Carlin concludes.

George Carlin has a different perspective about why we are all here today, but it is all about plastic—at least this session is largely, but not entirely, about plastics.

TWO: WHERE ARE WE?

I think we’re all aware that we are on a more crowded planet. It’s a very steep rate of increase in the level of crowdedness, which leads to things like a resource squeeze. I think that’s what many of us in this room are taking advantage of with our businesses.

From many different perspectives, people see this as a problem for society [and] for businesses going forward. McKinsey is making a life consulting about it. Even the U.S. military is concerned about resource scarcity driving conflict in the world.

Why should we worry, though?

If we look at the last 100 years, resource prices overall on a basket of commodity goods fell by 50 percent.

How is that possible when the world population was growing so dramatically during that time, and we were consuming more and more stuff? How did we drive down commodity prices by 50 percent?

It’s because many of you in this room and others figured out how to do their business very efficiently.

In the last 10 years, all of that gain was wiped out and more. Now, talking to you here today it’s a little hard to get you too excited about this because I know we’re in another dip as in 2008. But how many in this room actually believe [commodity prices] will continue to go down and are not going to have this general upward trend?

I don’t think so.

McKinsey points out that there is going to be 3 billion new middle-class consumers coming on the market in the next 15 years. Three billion middle-class consumers, and they want all of the same stuff we enjoy.

McKinsey estimates that we are going to need an 80 percent increase in steel alone. And they believe we need to invest $1 trillion a year just to manage this resource scarcity issue. Even if they are off by a factor of 10, that is still a big number—and I don’t think they are off by a factor of 10.

For me, this is a problem. But, more so, it is an opportunity, particularly for those of you in this room who know how to solve this problem.

We know there are financial and environmental consequences to extracting more [metal and ores] from a finite supply. It’s getting harder to find the stuff, in the ground at least, and therefore the costs are going up in general.

How do we solve this problem? How have we solved this problem?

Many of you in this room are responsible for the solution to this problem by reusing these minerals and not forcing them to be extracted from the planet to meet this growing demand.

How do plastics compare with other materials?

Most plastics today are made from petrochemicals or natural gas. Today it feels like we have an abundance of those raw materials, but we are going to more extreme measures to get to that remaining abundance in the planet.

Using recycled plastics can save between 80 percent to 90 percent of the energy needed to make them from virgin material. We can save 2 tons to 4 tons of CO2 (carbon dioxide) per ton of virgin produced. And recycling keeps plastics from ending up in harmful places—one of the things I’ll talk about in a moment.

In 2014 Europe recycled about 6.6 million tons of plastic—that’s a lot of plastics to recycle, but it is only about 14 percent of their annual use.

The U.S. recycles less than 10 percent [of its plastics] by estimates of the U.S. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).

Plastic has traditionally not been recycled as much as metals. Many people think that is because metals—steel in particular—have a very high value compared with plastics; plastics are a throwaway, worthless material.

But, plastics are actually several times more valuable than steel on a price per weight basis, and some plastics [are] considerably more [valuable]: 10 times more.

If there is so much of this darn stuff in the world, and it is so valuable, why in the world is the reuse/recovery rate so tiny compared to steel?

Well, the simple reason is that it’s not easy. If it were easy to recycle plastics, this wouldn’t be the case, right? You wouldn’t have a valuable material not being reused.

Metals have very different densities over a wide range. They have different electrical and magnetic properties. And they even have different colors. Those properties are exploited to separate metals and metal ores very efficiently and effectively.

Plastics, on the other hand, have overlapping densities over a very narrow range. Their electrical and magnetic properties are either nonexistent or very similar. And any plastic can be any color.

The traditional ways of separating materials simply have not worked for plastic, and we’ve had to be much cleverer.

Another consequence of plastics being difficult to recycle and metals being easy is that those of us in the developed world, particularly the U.S., I’m sad to say, ship our difficult-to-recycle stuff overseas. We continue, even with the Green Fence (China’s initiative to crack down on mixed materials shipments into the country) and with the market down, to ship much of our difficult-to-recycle streams to developing countries.

That in and of itself is not a bad practice, and I’m not here to suggest that it’s a bad practice. I am just here to talk about the consequences of that. Whole cities in China, for example, have been developed to handle our waste streams. They do a very good job of recycling what they can—the ones and twos and sometimes some other plastics—because that is what a human being can see as unique and separate from our waste streams, and they are getting the stuff that largely we have missed out of the mixed waste streams. I’m not trying to make a blanket statement because I have seen some very sophisticated recycling operations in China, as well.

This is not how we want to be defined as what we do with even some of our waste, in my opinion. It is certainly not how I want to be defined. Yet this is how we deal with some of our problematic waste that we have not figured out how to sort and process and handle properly here.

We seem to care about how our stuff is made. How many remember the pressure that Nike and other manufacturers of apparel, particularly sporting goods, received from the public because of their use of sweatshops? They changed their policies very quickly.

More recently Apple and other electronics manufacturers have come under similar scrutiny.

The unmaking of our stuff is much riskier if it’s not done properly than the making of our stuff. It can be done right, but often it is not.

There are a lot of movements to ban plastics. I have spent 35 years of my life in the plastics industry, so I don’t like to see this for any reason, not just because it impacts the career I’ve decided to choose for myself but [also] because I think this is bad.

Plastics offer incredible benefits, which is why we use them in the first place; it’s not just a cost benefit. There are huge water, energy [and] resource savings because we use plastic in our automobiles.

TROLLING FOR PLASTICS

During his presentation at the 2015 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference, Mike Biddle of Material Solutions talked about his experience participating in an expedition with 5Gyres, a nonprofit based in Santa Monica, California, to research the issue of plastics in the world’s oceans. 5Gyres says its mission is “to witness plastic pollution decline until it is no longer found in the world’s oceans.”

Biddle and his daughter, Jessica, were part of Crew 3 (http://www.5gyres.org/howtogetinvolved/expedition/), which studied the North Atlantic gyre, sailing from Bermuda to New York City.

Biddle said a recent paper published in Science attempted to quantify how much plastic is entering the oceans. According to the paper, 275 million metric tons of plastic are being generated in 192 coastal countries. Of that, anywhere from 2 percent to 5 percent might be entering the water streams. “Even though that is a small percentage, 5 million to 13 million tons a year is a very large number,” Biddle said.

He said he “wanted to see this with my own eyes,” which is why Biddle participated in the 5Gyres expedition.

In addition to trolling the ocean and sifting through the collected plastics, Biddle, his daughter and the rest of the crew also engaged in beach surveys. He said, “We sifted through sands on what looked to be pristine beaches and found an amazing amounts of plastic fragments—something you actually wouldn’t see with your eyes until you sift through the sand.”

He spoke of the “horizontal smokestacks” that contribute to the problem, namely the plastic pollution on the streets that finds its way into storm drains that lead to waterways and eventually the ocean.

“The problem besides the debris and the appearance and the pollution and so forth is that the interaction with marine life is not usually very positive,” Biddle said. “You have mammals, you have birds eating much of the plastic debris, filling up their guts. They are not dying from the plastic, but they are dying from the fact that they can’t get anything more into their digestive systems after a certain point. This is not a good thing by any stretch of the imagination.”

The American Chemistry Council did a study recently that said if we replaced plastic packaging with the next most logical nonplastic material, we would increase the burden of plastics in the U.S. by 55 million tons with all of the consequences that stem from that—more transport costs, etc.

THREE: WHERE DO I WANT TO GO?

I still think plastics are one of the coolest materials on the planet. I don’t want plastics out of my life, but I do want them out of my oceans, and I want them out of the wrong places.

I want to see plastics occupy a more accepted and a more understood role, and that’s frankly one of the reasons I left MBA Polymers, so I could advocate on how to solve these problems so the answer is not banning this valuable material. I want to see them deliver resource efficiency in a more complete way, which means managing end of life. To be very specific, we have got to do a better job with resource efficiency and with responsible waste management in particular.

We’ve got to start looking at waste differently. Now, I know I’m talking to the converted here, and this is nothing new to you, but it is for many of the audiences I talk to. Waste is not a waste—it’s a resource. We all know that; that’s why we’re here. We are mining resources from waste and are not looking at it as waste.

The four areas that I think we need to focus on with respect to plastics are:

  • biodegradable plastics – This is a hard one because as a recycler I fought biodegradable plastics for almost two decades. Now I am a believer that there is a role for biodegradable plastics in streams where there is no logical, sensible way to get the stuff collected.
  • collection – We still have to collect a lot more. We have gotten a lot better in the U.S., but we have got a lot more to go.
  • recycling – We need to recycle more of what we collect in the U.S. instead of just shipping it off and hoping and praying it gets recycled by someone who gives us a few pennies a pound for it.
  • energy recovery – For what we can’t recycle responsibly, I am a firm believer that there is a role for energy recovery to get us to full resource valuation—to get the full value out of our resources.

FOUR: HOW DO WE GET THERE?

Let’s learn from other materials and best practices: Steel has such a high recycling rate [though] it is a pretty low-value material because it is so straightforward to [recycle] it now and on a large scale. I believe plastics recycling is following exactly the same path.

A book by Clayton Christiansen, The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth, talks about the innovator’s solution. One of the examples he used was Nucor Steel, which put minimills on the map for steel recycling.

The original steel industry thought that Nucor was nuts—you can’t [upcycle] steel; it will always be a low-end rebar material. But from 1975 to 1990 [Nucor] went from rebar up to angle iron up to structural steel and sheet steel with accompanying increasing gross margins.

I see plastic doing the same thing, from plastic lumber to flower pots and bins to hidden low-demanding parts to now 100 percent used in very demanding parts. It is happening today, already.

If you are curious about this relationship with steel, The Guardian put out an article, “What Plastic can Learn from Steel in a Circular Economy” (www.the guardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/jan/29/plastic-industry-recycling-learn-from-steel-circular-economy).

[In plastics recycling today] what I see is a lot of movement of material. The transporting companies are the ones making the money in this scheme.

I think the future will be fewer touches. … Instead of every single MRF (material recovery facility) making bales that are 80 percent to 90 percent No. 1 or No. 2 material that then have to be transported and touched again and again, I think the MRFs will make a mixed plastics stream that will go to a single plastics processing facility that will then create at least five different types of plastics. The residual from that facility and the MRF can go to fuel. And the advantages to this besides the obvious fewer touches, transport and so forth is economies of scale … and more diversity instead of being stuck on just one plastic and the vagaries of that particular plastics commodity market.

I think the future will be more efficient and more financially attractive, and therefore plastics and recycling will become more sustainable in every sense of the word—environmentally and economically.

You might say, “This is nuts; you can’t do that.”

I invite you to go to a plant in northern England—an MBA Polymers plant—and I’m not just saying that because it’s my former plant. It is processing automotive shredder residue, perhaps the most complicated mixed plastic stream on the planet. It is the largest plant of its kind recovering plastics from end-of-life automobile shredder residue. There is a preprocessing facility that recovers the residual metals. It sends the mixed plastic waste to an MBA Polymers facility, and it gets energy from the rest. It is pretty close to zero waste. That is operational today. The MBA facility produces five plastics today and many grades within those five different types of plastic and sells them to Fortune 100 companies.

It is happening. It is possible. And it is much more efficient than touching it so many times.

Recycling Today Editor’s Note: This article is an edited transcript of the presentation Mike Biddle, founder of MBA Polymers and of Material Solutions, gave during the keynote session, “From Waste to Recycling to Resource Management,” at the 2015 Paper & Plastics Recycling Conference, organized by the Recycling Today Media Group.

Recycling Today

I am pleased to offer our MBA Polymers Newsletter for Q1 2016. At a time when economic conditions in the plastics recycling industry are difficult, we hope to provide a more positive overview of the sector.

One doesn’t have to look very far to find positive news about plastics. In one article, we explore how MBA Polymers actually contributed to a piece of groundbreaking research, published by Elsevier and penned by the researchers P.A. Wäger and R. Hischier, which used a life cycle analysis (LCA) conducted at our JV plastics recycling plant in Austria, to clearly demonstrate the environmental benefits of plastics recycling.

Another article, “Closing the missing link in the circular economy” by Chris Slijkhuis of Müller-Guttenbrunn describes how governments in the EU are recognizing the need for policies which encourage plastics recycling. The themes discussed are echoed in a TED talk from Dame Ellen MacArthur, in which she discusses how sailing solo across the world helped her to realise that the “take, make, waste” attitude to the world’s resources is fundamentally flawed, and why shifting towards a “regenerative economy” is imperative.

Indeed, the need for recycling in the plastics industry is such big news that our founder and board member, Mike Biddle of MBA Polymers was recently featured on the front cover of Recycling Today. His article “Coming Full Circle” highlights why developing the ability to turn waste into products is so crucial.

And it’s not just the environment that can benefit from an increased focus on plastics recycling but the economy too. Analysis conducted by Deloitte on behalf of the Brussels-based trade association Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE), found that increasing plastics recycling targets with the EU could help create some 50,000 jobs in Europe’s plastics recycling value chain within five years, as well as acting for the catalyst for a further of 75,000 indirect jobs in related industries.

It cannot be denied that in the future, recycling virtually all plastics will need to be something that happens as a matter of course. Our business is ideally placed to meet this need.

Our focus both historically, and in the future is likely to be producing and selling virgin substitute plastics from end-of-life mixed feed streams and as such we are focusing our efforts on gaining new OEM customers. We are also the only global plastics recycling company which can recycle plastics from Electronic Shredder Residue (ESR), Automobile Shredder Residue (ASR) and Municipal waste. There is real demand for these services, and we expect that this requirement will only increase over time.

Indeed, our business is already catering to significant demand. Even in the context of difficult economic conditions, our Austrian subsidiary continues to provide solid economic performance ending the year with a strongly positive EBITDA. In Austria, with the support of our partner, Müller-Guttenbrunn, we have also begun commercial production of a PC/ABS blend – something we think MBA Polymers is unique in having accomplished.

This is an exciting time for the plastics industry, and I am excited to be at the helm of such an pioneering company, and one which I am sure will continue to be at the forefront of innovations in the plastics recycling industry.

As mentioned in the last newsletter, when I was asked to return to MBA, I promptly accepted due to the passion I continue to have for MBA and its mission. Thank you for your support and interest in topics important to our Company.

If you have any questions, please e-mail me at the address below.

Respectfully yours,

Richard McCombs, CEO
rmccombs@mbapolymers.com