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

MBA Polymers’ customers were given further proof that they’re dealing with a world-class plastics recycling company this month, as the business announced that it has met the international standards of EuCertPlast for its plant at Kematen an der Ybbs, Austria. It is the first post-consumer plastics recycler in Europe to achieve the coveted EuCertPlast Standard.

The certification scheme aims to enhance transparency, improve the traceability of collected post consumer waste and improve the visibility of recycling and trading practices. The Europe-wide initiative is co-financed by the European Commission under the Eco-Innovation Programme.

Companies are only accredited to EuCertPlast following rigorous assessment of working practices and careful consideration of the quality of input and output achieved by an audited recycler. EuCertPlast’s experts monitor the entire recycling process, from the input of waste material to the creation of the final recycled product and also check that the manufacturer has the necessary permits for stages such as stock management, the recycling process and output. Only when a business has met all of EuCertPlast’s stringent requirements is the accreditation granted.

In order to ensure they gained the accreditation, specialists at MBA Polymers’ Austrian site developed a system of compliance and implemented a raft of new best-practice operational procedures. The site has also pledged to further reduce its environmental footprint by instigating regular reviews of working practices and putting continuous improvement at the heart of the business.

Products promoted under the Blue Angel scheme

Crucially, the new certification will allow MBA Polymers’ customers to promote their products under The Blue Angel banner, a German certification which supports consumers in making the most environmentally friendly purchasing choices – domestically or in business – by highlighting the most ecologically sound products on the market.

The scheme aims to protect the environment and empower the consumer by giving clients confidence that companies really do adhere to best practice environmental standards. The Blue Angel is the first and oldest environment-related label for products and services in the world and is recognised as a clear sign of environmental quality worldwide.

In order to promote their products as certified under the Blue Angel scheme, MBA Polymers’ customers must submit an application to the Blue Angel scheme’s awarding agency – RAL gGmbH – and provide evidence that the plastic they are using is provided by MBA Polymers and that their product also meets the environmental requirements of the standard.

MBA Polymers Chief Executive Nigel Hunton commented, “MBA Polymers has always maintained high quality standards and procedures, but we are very pleased to receive this certification at Kematen. Many of our customers require very stringent environmental procedures these days and this certification sets the standard for these types of procedures and shows our customers that we are operating correctly.”

“Meeting this standard has been an excellent challenge for our team,” said Daniel Forstner, Quality Manager, MBA Polymers, Austria. “We have made improvements in areas such as auditing, process management, addressing areas of non-compliance and taking appropriate action. It is another important step for MBA’s operations in Austria.”

In a plastics-heavy industry such as home appliances, any business for whom sustainability is more than just a buzz word should be exploring how it can incorporate post-consumer plastics into its supply chain.

In this area, appliances manufacturer Electrolux’s aims are pioneering and ambitious. Cecilia Nord, the director responsible for sourcing at Electrolux states their goal as “targeting sustainability leadership in the appliance industry”.

Cecilia’s approach extended beyond simply exploring where they could incorporate post-consumer plastics in the business’s supply chain; she wanted to spark dialogue too. “Our vision was to raise awareness of environmental issues, stimulate greater supply of plastics, and show the potential use, and to boost the distribution and sales of green home appliance products.’

My other car’s (still) a Porsche

To begin to make these changes, the company decided to explore recycling cars, which can yield huge amounts of plastic everywhere from batteries to bumpers, in the creation of their new vacuums. This, however, is the relatively easy part. Finding a sustainable and economically effective way of sourcing these plastics can be more of a challenge. Not for Electrolux.  By teaming up with global post-consumer plastics specialist MBA Polymers, it was able to source sustainable supplies of recycled plastics for the vacuum’s components. Cecilia Nord commented: “Choosing the source for the material was one of the most difficult obstacles in the path of developing the Ultra Silencer Green because every type of recycled plastic had to be tested for quality and durability for the relevant component. Electrolux eventually teamed up with MBA Polymers…”

The result is a vacuum whose green credentials cannot be questioned. Electrolux’s Ultra Silencer vacuum is made from 55 per cent recycled polypropylene, saving over two litres of crude oil and 80 litres of water per unit, as well as reducing manufacturing energy consumption by 90 per cent. Yet environmental credentials do not come at the expense of durability, and all products are developed to withstand 10 years of normal usage.

If all of the 20 million vacuum cleaners that are sold annually in Europe were built in the same way, some 1.6 million cubic meters of water, and 251,000 barrels of oils could be saved.

The success of the project led Electrolux to explore how else it could use recycled plastics in its products and raise awareness of just how scarce recycled plastics are at present on land. For there is one area of the world where there is a surfeit of plastics that could be recycled.

Vac from the sea

Anyone who has watched the plastic bottles bobbing forlornly in the sea while on holiday will know that the amount of plastic waste going into our oceans is a problem. What they may not realise is the extent of this problem, and that the damage goes way beyond aesthetics. For example, around 20,000 tonnes of garbage is dumped in the North Sea every year, doing huge damage to the environment.

For Electrolux’s next foray into recycled plastics, they decided this was a fitting area to explore. Cecilia Nord commented: “Our oceans are filled with plastic waste. Yet on the land, there is a shortage of recycled plastics to make sustainable vacuum cleaners.” Electrolux’s solution was to work with local recycling organisations to recycle plastic and create a series of vacuums made from plastics recycled from the coastal areas all over the World, and to showcase them in a PR campaign introduced in 2010 – Vac from the Sea.

The vacuums themselves are highly attractive. For example in St Cyr-sur-Mer, France, the company teamed up with the Surfrider Foundation to collect plastic – such as beverage bottles, beach toys and even shoes –  that had been washed up on the beach.  The plastic gathered in this way from the Mediterranean was cut into heart shaped pieces and then attached to a thin shell of industrially recycled plastic to create the below:

Off the coast of the Phi Phi Islands in Thailand, coral reef divers Blue View Divers gathered plastics that had been abandoned in the sea. What was found was everything from discarded beer bottles, straws, to huge chunks of Styrofoam. The total rubbish collected over the two day cleanup event amounted to 962 kilos.

The collected plastics intended for the concept vac were split in a shredder into small square pieces. The white and coloured plastic squares were then mounted in a pattern that covers the entire top and the hub caps on the vacuum cleaner, while pieces from plastic bottles with brighter colours were used as accents.

Global reach

The Vac from the Sea initiative was a huge success. Between 2010 and 2012 the vacuum cleaners went on a world tour, and were displayed everywhere from the Milano Museum of Science and Technology to Australian Sustainability Days to raise awareness of the problem of plastic debris in the oceans.

The striking appearance of the vacuums also generated both print and broadcast coverage across the world. Nord commented: “Since the start, more than 200 million people have been engaged by “Vac from the Sea”, through print, online or social media. What’s perhaps even more important is that materials with a superior sustainability profile have been introduced into the household appliance industry and are now being used across the company.

She concluded: ‘The real victory is that “Vac from the Sea” has raised awareness of the scarcity of recycled plastic – not just in green communities but in the broad masses.’

» Watch the video

At face value, Nohra Padilla and Rossano Ercolini have little in common. Padilla is a grassroots recycler (more commonly known as a waste picker) from Bogota, Columbia and Ercolini is a school teacher from Capannori, Italy.

What unites the pair is their shared ambition of achieving zero waste to landfill or incineration, and their huge personal efforts to further this cause. As a result of their dedication, both were announced as winners of this year’s Goldman Prize, which awards $150,000 each to six grassroots environmentalists who made a real impact on the environment, often against great odds.

The pair demonstrate that the road to zero landfill isn’t easy; both met with opposition from governments, big business with vested interests and even organised crime in the course of their journey. However the overwhelming message of their stories is that dramatically reducing waste to landfill is possible, and that the public are very willing to get on board once they understand what the stakes are…

Nohra Padilla

For Nohra Padilla, recycling is in the blood. Like many in her community, for decades her family has survived by salvaging plastic bottles, aluminium cans, paper scraps, and the like from dumps, curbside trash cans, and collection centers, which are then sold to act as the raw material from products ranging from blue jeans to paper.

In the 1980s, Padilla began organizing her fellow recycling workers, creating the first grassroots recycler cooperative in Bogotá. Since then she has helped to form the Asociación de Recicladores de Bogotá, or Bogotá Recyclers Association, where she now serves as executive director. The association includes 24 cooperatives representing 3,000 people. She also played an important role in forming and leading Colombia’s National Recyclers Association.

This organisation of the grassroots’ recyclers work helped to quantify the significant positive environmental effects of their work. Through their network of cooperatives, grassroots recyclers in Bogotá recover 20 to 25 percent of all material thrown away by city residents. This amounts to about 100 times more recyclable material than is collected by the city’s large private recycling companies.

Diverting waste from Landfill

The importance of the work these recyclers do was recognised in March when the workers were recognised as city employees. They will now be paid $48 per ton of material they deliver to collection centres, and will be eligible for government pensions and support for healthcare.

Again, Padilla met with significant opposition. Powerful political opponents, a lack of support for worker unionisation and climate subsidies which cut recyclers out of the picture meant Padilla’s would always have a fight on her hands to make a difference.

For example, in 2009, the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism awarded carbon credits to the Doña Juana landfill gas project – a project which threatened the livelihoods of Bogotá’s 21,000 informal recyclers by making it more profitable to send waste to landfill than to recycle it, and by also limiting access to recyclable materials.

The Grassroots Recyclers Association worked hard to mitigate the impact of the project, but had to fight to ensure their community benefits agreement was implemented.  They were successful. The association raised nearly two million dollars, about 75 percent from outside funds and 25 percent co-financed by the association, to build the biggest grassroots-run recycling centre in Latin America.

Rossano Ercolini

Rossano Ercolini began to campaign against incinerators in the 1970s, when he learned of a plan to build one in his own town. Motivated by concern for the health of his students, he began a campaign to educate his community on the dangers of incineration, including how the burning of garbage releases particles which are linked to asthma and other respiratory problems.

As waste incineration was embraced by the Italian government and big environmental organizations, all of whom bought into the premise that it was a safe and effective technology, Ercolini had a David-and-Goliath scale struggle on his hands. Even the mafia supported incineration because of the 20- to 30-year lucrative contracts and large government investments it involved.

Yet Ercolini was undeterred. He gained support for his campaign by working with scientists and waste experts to give local residents the facts on the health risks of incineration, and insight into potential alternatives.

Diverting waste from incineration

As a result, when the residents of Capannori succeeded in defeating the incinerator proposal, they had also developed a real passion to find ways of better handling garbage.

Unsurprising then, that Capannori became the first Italian municipality to declare a zero waste goal for 2020. And Ercolini himself has now helped to defeat 50 proposed incinerators and has also helped the zero waste movement to spread across Italy.

With the help of the Legge Rifiuti Zero (Zero Waste Alliance) and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, there are now 117 zero waste municipalities in Italy, with a population of about 3 million people.

“Incineration is no longer wanted or needed in these areas,” Ercolini says. “Instead, they have established comprehensive recycling and composting systems guided by zero waste goals. This has helped improve community health and has sparked strong collaborations between communities and local governments.”

» Watch the Goldman video about Nohra Padilla

» Watch the Goldman video about Rossano Ercolini

MBA Polymers’ youngest employees recently explored their hopes and dreams for the future with none other than sporting legend Kriss Akabusi. The former Olympic athlete, who now specialises in youth training and motivational speaking, held a lively training workshop at MBA’s Worksop plant, helping the company’s young recruits to paint a vision of their goals and challenges, and take their first steps towards building a fulfilling career.

“Youth training is vital to our business,” says Nigel Hunton, MBA’s CEO. “It’s important that everyone understands MBA’s culture as we continue to grow, and that people know how to stay safe and give of their best in the workplace. This means helping young people to develop valuable skills and knowledge for work and life.”

“Kriss Akabusi has some great experience in helping underprivileged young people to enter and thrive in the workplace, and we were delighted to welcome him to our plant to help our young employees recognise how work can improve their lives.”

With nearly 20% of MBA’s 145 Worksop employees aged 18-24, Kriss had a full class for his first training session. Conscious of the work challenges facing today’s young people, and particularly in communities with high unemployment rates, he was determined to help make a difference.

“When young people from deprived areas get jobs, they become a role model in their community, so it’s really important that they understand the value of work and the investment their employer is making in them,” Akabusi explains.

“The transition to the workplace is much harder than it was 20 years ago,” he continues. “In our knowledge-based economy, people need more qualifications to compete and more people are attending university. If you don’t have high level academic qualifications, it’s not obvious how to create opportunities for yourself.”

Moving swiftly from words to action, Kriss first helped the class to understand that everyone sees the world differently – in work, at school and in life. In helping them to engage with their future and their career, he encouraged them to consider what work is, their skills and gifts, and the unspoken contract of companies investing in their employees and employees delivering their best.

“We don’t tend to have jobs for life these days – we have a ‘portfolio’ career, moving every few years, so it’s important that employees develop useful skills and knowledge for the future while performing in their current role,” he says.

Kriss stirred the team’s imaginations by asking them to share where they would be in five years, if there were no barriers to success. Together, they created a ‘wall of dreams’, using magazine cuttings, images and charts to show how their lives would take shape. Next, they created the ‘wall of complexity’, with the team exploring the barriers they thought could prevent them from achieving their dreams.

“We had some great responses, and it was surprising to see how level-headed these young people were,” Kriss explains. “The majority simply wanted security and a place to belong. And they had a realistic attitude about the obstacles they face.

“Building a clear picture of what we want and what’s holding us back is the first step towards understanding what drives us, and identifying what we can and can’t control.”

The next step is working with managers to help build trust, Kriss explains, and understanding that transgressions carry a clear penalty. Equally, managers need to communicate clearly on what’s right and wrong, hold the mirror up, and work collaboratively with their young recruits.

Kriss invited plant manager Richard Chambers and HR Manager Sue Thomson to talk to the team. Richard spoke about the importance of investing in new recruits and respecting health and safety rules on site, highlighting that everyone is there to support their young colleagues. Meanwhile, Sue explained that MBA’s HR team is there to help them every step of the way, through the good days and bad days.

“The training with Kriss helped our young people to understand how to make the move from school to work, why discipline is necessary in the workplace, and really think about what they want from their careers,” says Sue.

“It was great for everyone to engage in an open and frank discussion about their ambitions, different personality types and management styles,” adds Richard. “We want to show the young people in the company that there’s more to life than clocking in and clocking out – that work is a pathway to achieving dreams and ambitions.”

Feedback from the young participants has been positive, with employees agreeing that the training was worthwhile and particularly beneficial for new starters.

“It got people out of their comfort zone, made them feel part of them team, and will also help motivate them, as it shows the company is behind its young employees and wants them to progress here for the long term,” says MBA employee Guy Hughes.

Thinking about goals and obstacles was very helpful, believes Guy’s colleague Jamie Todd. “I’ll be more motivated to overcome any challenges I may face in the future that could stop me reaching my goals,” he says, adding that the company’s efforts to invest in its young employees made them all feel valued.

Looking ahead, MBA’s Polymers will be helping its young employees to develop a roadmap to achieve their ambitions, with more experienced employees sharing stories of their own career paths.

Youth training is part of a wider programme of activities to support young people at MBA, including graduate placements and a new apprenticeship scheme, set to be launched later this year.