MBA Polymers Honored by Tech Museum

The Tech Museum of Innovation, a science and technology museum, has announced MBA Polymers Inc. as a 2006 Tech Museum Awards Laureate.

The San Jose museum has named 25 Laureates for the Tech Museum Awards Program, presented by Applied Materials Inc., which honors “those who leverage new and existing technologies to benefit humanity,” according to a news release from the museum.

The group of 25 was chosen from among 951 entries received (representing 98 countries) by program partner Santa Clara University and its Center for Science, Technology, and Society.

“This award is a great tribute and I’m pleased to accept it on behalf of MBA Polymers and all of our employees, partners and investors,” says Michael Biddle, founder and CEO of MBA Polymers. “The timing of this honor could not be better for our company as our small team just put in several very difficult years rolling out two world-scale recycling plants nearly simultaneously, and each about one-third of the way around the world from our headquarters in California.”

Adds Biddle, “Not only does our technology keep a valuable resource from the landfills and incinerators around the world, it can save billions of pounds of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere, dramatically reduce water consumption, and save millions of barrels of oil every year. We are proud to demonstrate that environmental and economic benefits can and should coincide.”

MBA Polymers, profiled in the November 2202 issue of Recycling Today, literally started in the Pittsburg, Calif., garage of Biddle more than 12 years ago. It has since become a world leader in developing and commercializing technology to recover plastics from highly mixed and contaminated streams of the residue created by the shredding of obsolete durable goods.

MBA’s automated technology can separate mixed plastics from contaminants such as metals, wood, glass, paper, foils, foams, rubber, textiles and dirt and then sort and purify many types of grades of plastics from one another, making new plastics that can be used right back in new durable products.

Within the last 12 months, MBA has started up two production facilities. One is in Guangzhou, China, and the other in Austria. Each plant each has the capacity to process approximately 40,000 tons per year of complicated feedstocks, according to Biddle.

 “The Tech Museum Awards . . . are an incredibly important way to call attention to some of the most meaningful innovations in science and technology in the world, and to the often unsung heroes behind them,” says Peter Friess, president of The Tech Museum. “The Laureates who we honor serve as great role models to future generations of inventors and engineers, and their work reminds us that innovation can be applied in profound ways to benefit humanity and the world.”