Plastics Recycler Wins Innovation Award

MBA Polymers Inc., Richmond, Calif., has been awarded the first Thomas Alva Edison Award for Innovation by The Young Entrepreneurs Organization (YEO) and the Edison Preservation Foundation.

MBA is a plastics recycling company that concentrates on finding end markets for plastics generated by recycled electronic equipment and durable goods. The two groups presenting the award cited MBA’s “pioneering of the recycling of high -value plastics from end-of-life durable goods such as appliances, business equipment, computers, electronics and automobiles.”  

The YEO and the Edison Preservation Foundation teamed up to create the YEO Thomas Alva Edison Award for Innovation to honor YEO members for their innovative contributions to society. In 2002, there were 47 nominees from eight countries and 29 cities, of which 11 finalists were chosen by a panel of judges from the two organizations. MBA was honored as the first place finisher among the 11 finalists at a recent YEO conference in Mexico City.

“Through many years of difficult research and development, MBA Polymers has developed an integrated and automated approach to turn waste products into valuable materials,” says John Keegan, president of the Edison Preservation Foundation. “The company had to essentially create a new industry and convince many skeptics that is was indeed possible to recycle plastics from complicated waste streams, and this is the essence of true innovation.”

North America consumes approximately 100 billion pounds of plastics each year. Unlike metals, forest products and aggregates, plastic is the only major material category that has not developed a recycling infrastructure to come close to matching its output of new material.

The European Union, Japan and a number of other countries have passed legislation to recycle durable goods like electronics, appliances, computers and automobiles, which could create a wider global market for recycled plastic.

“Major multinational manufacturers of durable goods are now working with MBA to recycle the plastics from their end-of-life products, and to provide them with recycled plastics for their new products,” says Dr. Michael B. Biddle, CEO and president of MBA Polymers. “Essentially we are helping these large companies with a waste problem on the back end of their business and providing them with a recycled plastic that can lower costs that enable their ‘green marketing’ products on the front end of their business. This is key to not only reducing cost, but preserving the environment as well.”

MBA is currently working with Flextronics, one of the world's largest electronics manufacturing services providers, and numerous electronics OEMs to provide both electronic recycling services and recycled materials.

MBA Polymers Inc. was founded in 1994 by Dr. Michael Biddle and Trip Allen to expand the research capabilities in the area of plastics recycling, and to develop a commercial process for recovering plastics from complex streams of materials. After eight years of research and development, MBA is now considered a world leader at developing technology for the recovery of high value engineering plastics from complex durable goods streams such as computers, electronics, appliances and automobiles.