Page 21 - Plastics News November 2017

FEATURES

Anand and chief engineer Ashok Kumar would visit Indore purposes and those of better quality will be recycled into
on November 6 to study the plastic recycling plant being plastic commodities," Singh added. The new infrastructure
used by the municipal corporation there, Singh said and commitment gives fresh impetus. With the growth in
added that the plant would cost around Rs7 crore along the industry we are going to be generating waste plastic,
with two years maintenance. "Dry and wet waste will be and we are going to be building roads for the foreseeable
collected separately from the secondary garbage point future. Why not use the method that does away with the
and plastic from dry waste will be segregated further. plastic waste and makes the roads cheaper, durable and
Thin plastic will be melted and used for construction safer?"

Turning plastic rubbish into profits

The potential seems endless for MBA Polymers, a company that cracked the code on separating plastics
from complex waste streams The potential seems endless for MBA Polymers, a company that cracked
the code on separating plastics from complex waste streams

n the outskirts of England's Sherwood Forest, one of Products such as electronics, household goods and
Othe world’s most innovative plastic recycling plants is automobiles are particularly difficult to treat since they
turning discarded vacuum cleaners, stereos and toasters often contain several different types of plastics mixed
into millions of multi-colored plastic pellets. At price per with metals and glass.
weight, these tiny pellets are more valuable than steel and
sold as raw material to manufacturers as a replacement for Paul Mayhew, MBA's General Manager in the UK, said, “The
virgin plastic in new products from mobile phones to cars. process is complicated and our technology was the first of
its kind. Our strictly patented process remains a closely
guarded secret.”

That process got its start back in 1992, when engineer
Dr. Mike Biddle set up a lab in his garage in Pittsburg,
California. Borrowing ideas from mining and grain
processing, he began to experiment with the complicated
business of plastics recycling. In 1992 he founded MBA
Polymers, which has since registered more than 60 patents
for magnetically extracting metals, shredding the plastics,
sorting them by type and producing graded pellets. (Dr.
Biddle no longer heads the company.)
MBA Polymers is considered the world leader in retrieving
and producing high-value plastics from end-of-life durable MBA Polymers claims to recover more material from end-
goods that normally end up in landfill or incinerated. With of-life durable goods than any other plastic recycler and
sites in Austria, China and the UK, the company managed continues to invest heavily in research and development.
to recycle 110,000 tonnes last year—that’s 62 Big Bens. Last January at the World Economic Forum in Davos it won
Each tonne uses 80 percent less energy and generates up the "Young Global Leaders Award for Circular Economy
to three tonnes less carbon dioxide than virgin plastic SME" category of the prestigious Circular Awards and was
produced from petrochemicals. MBA Polymers says its selected by the audience for The Davos Prize as "The Most
plastic tends to be at least 10 percent cheaper as well, Impactful and Innovative Circular Economy Story from
depending on oil prices. the Evening."
The company estimates that globally, less than one-tenth The company had a £40 million (US $52 million) turnover
of the plastic from complex waste streams is recycled. last year, and at the beginning of this year Elephant Equity

21 N ovember 2017 Plastics News