“We often talk about the Stone Age, the Iron Age, the Bronze Age… Now, people are starting to refer to this age as the Plastics Age – it’s in everything,” MBA’s founder Mike Biddle explains, speaking in Pharrell Williams’ new film-documentary ‘The Plastic Age’. The film, launched to bring greater global awareness to the plastic pollution issue, sees Biddle join a host of speakers including Markus Erikson and Anna Cummins from not-for-profit organisation 5 Gyres, Tyson Toussant of Bionic Yarn, and Captain Charles Moore, the man who discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch back in 1997.

Speaking about his discovery, Moore explains that he felt compelled to understand how much plastic was there. His expeditions found six times as much plastic as plankton in 1999, which rocketed up to 36 times by 2009. Now, the Ocean Conservancy estimates that there could soon be as much plastic in the oceans as fish.

The 17-minute film begins by taking viewers through the crazy marketing frenzy that surrounded plastics in the 1950s, as ‘convenience’ became the new buzz word, through to the 288m tonnes of plastic now being produced each year. It highlights that much of this plastic, millions of tonnes, finds its way to the oceans.

“You can dip a net into any ocean in the world and find plastic,” says Cummins. “It gets there through storm drains and rivers… It blows out of garbage cans and falls out of dumpster trucks.”

“In the past 50 years, we have ‘plasticised’ our planet,” adds Erikson.

The story continues in Hawaii, the world’s most isolated archipelago, where people including conservationists and surfers regularly find plastic waste that has washed up from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – from as far away as Russia, America and Asia. We also hear how commonplace it has become for humans to have synthetic chemicals flowing through their veins, partially as a result of eating fish that have consumed small particles of plastic in the oceans.

It’s not all doom and gloom, however. The film is cautiously optimistic about humans’ ability to turn the situation around. Speakers consistently point out that the plastic waste in the ocean is waiting to be mined, that we can make use of it to meet our existing needs, without making petroleum-based plastic from scratch.

“The volume of plastic produced annually is the same weight as every man, woman and child on Earth,” says Captain Moore. “Imagine if we recovered and reused it.”

“Humans adapt, we’re creative – that’s what we do so well,” adds marine biologist Dr Wallace Nichols.

The new G-Star RAW ‘Raw for the Oceans’ range of denim clothing, co-created by Williams, illustrates a new way of doing business that protect oceans, according to Parley, the group that helped to catalyse the project.

Indeed, harnessing people’s imagination and innovating through unusual multi-stakeholder collaborations is what we need to tackle this monumental issue, the film concludes.

To view the full ‘Plastic Age’ documentary, please click here.

Five graduates in the Netherlands have developed a recycled plastic filament for 3D printers, made from end-of-life car dashboards. Through their Better Future Factory innovation consultancy, the young Rotterdam-based entrepreneurs have formed a start-up company called Refil to manufacture and sell the filament.

As 3D printing takes off – the market is set to reach $16bn by 2018 – there is a risk that more virgin plastic will be consumed and more plastic waste created, adding to the already substantial plastic pollution challenge. Refil’s new ‘refilament’ offers an alternative to virgin plastic filament, in a move that will make 3D printing more sustainable, the company says.

Refil has made its first batch of ‘refilaments’ from old car dashboards, door panels and other ABS parts (creating a 100% recycled black filament) and PET bottles (creating a 90% recycled translucent filament). The recycling process works by shredding scraps into tiny pieces and removing contaminants. The pieces are then melted and turned into 1.75mm or 2.85mm diameter strings that are wound around recycled carbon spools. Importantly, there are no harmful chemicals used in the process.

“We don’t add any toxic dyes to our products and this has been our biggest challenge. After a lot of research, we have developed refilaments that have the exact same quality as ordinary filaments, without adding any toxics,” Refil researcher Laura Klaus tells PSFK.

Elsewhere, US-based start-up Dimension Polymers has also just showcased its new recycled plastic filament. The company shared its creation at the 3D Print Show in New York. Having raised more than $20,000 via an online crowd-funding campaign, it has developed a proprietary recycling system to produce 95% recycled ABS plastic filaments. The team sources the feedstock from waste collection centres and scrap yards.

Refil’s ‘refilament’ recently won the IDTechEx Best Material Development Award at the 3D Printing Europe Awards. To read more about Refil, click here.

To hear how MBA Polymers is helping its JV partner EMR to exceed EU end-of-life vehicle (ELV) recycling targets, please visit our website.

Could you describe your role and responsibilities at MBA Polymers?

I have overall responsibility for quality assurance here at Worksop. I promote and implement systems and processes to guarantee that we satisfy our stakeholders’ needs. That could be in terms of regulatory compliance or material specification, for example. I’m involved right from the approval of suppliers through to product testing and the despatch of finished goods. I also oversee our product development efforts. This includes continuously improving the quality of our products and working with customers to identify or develop products that suit their applications.

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

We collaborate with customers to understand how they need the product to perform and how they use the plastic in their manufacturing process. We can then develop a solution that best fits their business and run laboratory tests to confirm that we have met their needs effectively.

Could you share an example?

We’re currently working with a large packaging manufacturer on incorporating their re-grind into a compound product that we’ve created for them. We modified the material to meet their requirements and used our thermo-analytical test equipment to confirm that we had delivered the most cost effective solution. We also collaborated with a specialist to achieve an exact colour match.

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

Our major challenge is to remove non-target materials and purify the individual target plastics we recycle. We do this in a way that uses the most plastic possible and maximises the benefits to the customer at minimum cost. This means a technical focus on yield, additive cost efficacy and optimisation of material properties.

What do you think of Mazda’s move to introduce bio-plastic for exterior car parts?

It’s interesting. We’re also exploring how vehicle manufacturers can reduce the weight of vehicle parts to achieve CO₂ emission targets – through efficient fillers rather than bio-plastics. According to Mazda, the energy requirements for the production of bioplastics are 30% lower than those of virgin plastics. Recovering plastics at MBA Polymers uses 80% less energy when compared to making the equivalent virgin plastic polymer.

There’s also a question mark over how sustainable it to use agricultural land to cultivate feedstock for bio-plastics. Unless the feedstock is sourced as a by-product of food production, it will compete with the food and fibre crops to feed and clothe the world’s growing population.

After months of uncertainty surrounding the European Union’s circular economy package – a set of laws and policies designed to help accelerate the transition to a more restorative, ‘waste-free’ economy – there is some good news.

Following the 2015 European Circular Economy Conference in Brussels earlier this month, the European Commission has announced that the revised package will be even more ambitious. In particular, it will include country-specific waste-reduction targets and a roadmap to encourage more businesses to adopt closed-loop models. The new package is due to emerge later in 2015.

“Both these aspects – the waste targets review and the roadmap – will come together before the end of this year,” said Karmenu Vella, European Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs, and Fisheries. “The more I look at the two sides – the environment and the economy – the more convinced I become that the way forward is to fully integrate resource efficiency into the way we do business in Europe.”

The new package will also seek to address a range of economic sectors in addition to waste management, according to Vella, who added that the new package will offer an opportunity to “transform Europe into a more competitive, resource-efficient economy.”

First announced in July 2014, the European Commission’s circular economy package featured a proposed 70% recycling and reuse target for 2030. It also included a requirement for member states to recycle 80% of packaging waste by 2030. But in December 2014, the Commission indicated that these plans would be scrapped in favour of something more ambitious.

In 2010, total waste production in the EU amounted to 2.5bn tons, of which only 36% was recycled. The rest was landfilled or incinerated, yet 600m tonnes could have been recycled or reused, protecting the environment and adding value to the economy. Recent research by WRAP indicates that a circular economy could create more than 200,000 jobs in the UK alone.

Vella said that the Commission will continue to promote eco-innovation and investment in clean technologies. This stands to deliver savings of €600bn for businesses in the EU, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

MBA Polymers’ founder and president, Dr. Mike Biddle had a starring role at the Environmental Film Festival at Yale (EFFY) earlier this month as he sat on an expert panel following a screening of Candida Brady’s innovative new film ‘Trashed’.

Brady – a well-established British campaigning journalist who has long supported the innovative work of MBA Polymers – made the documentary to explore the issue of how our appetite for consumption is wreaking havoc across the globe. The ambitious film follows Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons as he travels the world in an attempt to understand the environmental impact of the rubbish we produce, and explores what we can do to halt the damage that is being done to the Earth.

The damage our ever-increasing consumption is doing to our planet is shown explicitly in the film. As a relatively inexpensive material, plastic is ubiquitous, highly disposable, and is rarely recycled appropriately. Each year over 58 billion disposable cups, billions of plastic bags and 200 billion litres worth of water bottles are thrown away, doing incalculable harm to our environment.

With a keen eye for the dichotomy between the beauty of the planet and the damage being done to it by the waste we’re producing, the film visits an array of countries which have one thing in common; they’re being destroyed by trash. We see vast landscapes in China which are covered in tons of rubbish, observe how the Ciliwung River in Indonesia is now barely visible under an ever-mounting tide of plastic and witness the way in which the Lebanese city of Sidon’s shoreline is littered with medical waste, household trash and toxic fluids which tumble from coastal rubbish dumps into the sea.

Health problems our trash habit is creating

The film also discusses the very real health problems our trash habit is creating, as it explores how fish are eating the pollutants from these discarded plastics, and how by eating these fish we too are absorbing these dangerous toxins.  It also examines how ‘latent’ poisons are being released as the polar ice caps melt, a process accelerated by the short term solutions that are being used to manage existing waste, such as incineration.

The film is the result of two years of painstaking research and investigation by Candida Brady, who commented: “As a lifelong asthmatic I have always been interested in the effects of pollution. But it was meeting an environmental doctor – who saved my life – that opened my eyes to the direct effects the environment has on our health.”

Despite the grim subject matter being investigated, the overall message of the film is optimistic as Irons meets individuals, businesses and Governments who are providing solutions. He meets individuals who have changed their own lifestyles so that they produce virtually no waste, explores how anti-waste legislation is encouraging behavioural change and visits a city that has become virtually waste free.

The final film to be shown at the festival, Trashed proved hugely popular with the audience, who asked a range of thought-provoking questions about how some of the solutions discussed in the film can be implemented, and what we as individuals can do to less our personal impact on the environment.

Viewing our waste as a valuable resource

Speaking about his appearance at the festival, Dr. Biddle commented: “What appealed to me about this film is that it does show the significant problems we face in managing the huge amounts of waste humanity generates, and that dealing with these problems requires concerted efforts on many fronts.  Most importantly, we must start viewing our waste like the mix of valuable resources it is and recovering these resources for re-use rather than discarding them in irresponsible ways that damage our ecosystem.

Furthermore, if we don’t re-use our precious resources, we must go to ever greater extremes to mine the materials or drill for the petrochemicals we need for the rapidly growing global demand of the products we use everyday.  And recycling most materials, such as metals and plastics, saves enormous amounts of energy and CO2 generation compared to producing them from virgin raw materials.

“At the moment – and as the film clearly shows – we are simply not doing enough to recycle plastics. Of the 250 billion kgs of plastics produced annually on a global basis, less than 10 per cent of these plastics from complex waste streams are recycled. In comparison, over 90 per cent of metal is recycled. As plastic is more valuable than steel on a cost per weight basis, this disparity makes no environmental or economic sense.

“To really make full use of advances in the field of recycling plastics, wholesale change needs to take place, whether it is big businesses doing more to ensure the products they produce can be effectively recycled at the end of their lifespan, or individuals ensuring they’re recycling their plastic waste to the best of their abilities.

“It’s my ambition to stop all waste going to landfill or being incinerated. The technology to do this is there, and it’s getting better all the time. We just need to make sure we’re using it, and that domestic recyclers have access to waste streams for above-ground mining of materials and a level playing field to operate, otherwise these materials will continue to be exported to take advantage of what I call environmental arbitrage’ – exporting our complex waste to countries where the environmental and human health and safety standards, and thus the costs, are lower.”

The film has already gained international attention. It received official selection for the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and the trailer alone has received over a million views online. Trashed was released on DVD on Earth Day (April 22nd).

The DVD is available to purchase from here

For more information about the film click here