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MGG Polymers (Austria)
Formerly known as MBA Polymers Austria, the Müller-
Gutenbrunn Group’s plastics recycling facility in Kematen is
thought to be the first in the world able to produce post-consumer recycled
PC/ABS, which represents roughly 10% of contemporary e-waste plastics
mix. ‘There are not many recyclers that know what to do with this material,’
says MGG Polymers’ director Chris Slijkhuis. ‘It’s an expensive plastic that
looks very polished and stylish, making it popular amongst manufacturers.
But it is very difficult to separate and process.’
Protecting the environment is a top priority at MGG Polymers, For this rea-
son, the family-owned company has covered the roof of its facility with a
solar panel system – the biggest in the region – to provide green energy.
Lein Tange, managing director of
PolystyreneLoop (The Netherlands)
Tange is an authority on plastic recycling with a particular interest
in difficult plastics such as polystyrene foam. Since mid-June, he has been
overseeing a new venture, PolystyreneLoop, in the Dutch town Terneuzen.
He helped develop a purifying process to tackle a niche that not many have
dared touch: PS foam from demolition waste, which contain many additives.
The start-up has an initial processing capacity of 3 300 tonnes per year.
Miranda Wang, co-founder of
Novoloop (USA)
Wang started Novoloop straight out of
college together with her best friend Jeanny Yao.
The young women felt compelled to find a method
to treat plastic scrap more efficiently after learning
that most material in the US was either incinerated
or landfilled. Their ‘breakthrough’ accelerated ther-
mal oxidative decomposition technology harvests
carbon-rich feedstock from polyethylene scrap to
produce high performance materials that rival vir-
gin plastic. ‘We want to help double the size of the
circular economy,’ Wang tells us. ‘Our flagship
product, XIRC, is designed to help planet-con-
scious brands accelerate the adoption of sustain-
able performance materials without compromising
quality and durability.’ XIRC contains up to 50%
post-consumer recycled content.
Carlos Ludlow-Palafox, owner of Enval (UK/
Mexico)
Mexican entrepreneur Ludlow-Palafox is determined to boost the
recovery of laminated packaging and has a lifetime goal to take his patent-
ed technology back home. Mexico has none of the extended producer
responsibility schemes seen in Western Europe but Ludlow-Palafox believes
this will change and Enval will become a key partner for brands concerned
about sustainability.
‘My personal mission is to make Enval a commercial success and, through
Enval, to show that pyrolysis is a waste management solution but not THE
waste management solu-
tion,’ he told RI in April
2021. ‘Pyrolysis has suffered
from over-promising and
under-delivery with people
saying “we can take any-
thing; just throw it at us and
we will deliver plastic and oil
and run the world”. That
won’t happen because we
are not alchemists.’
WEEE Metallica
(France)
This e-scrap recycling leader is
currently promoting its technology for
use in recycling electronic residues and
by-products. It established the world’s
first industrial facility dedicated exclu-
sively to processing printed circuit
boards via pyrolysis in 2011. The site at
Isberges treats about 30 000 tonnes of
low-grade boards to produce a clean
metal concentrate that serves copper
smelters.
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Stuart Fleming, founder/ceo Enviroserve Group
(UAE)
Fleming stood at the cradle of what he claims to be the first of its kind in
the Middle East and ‘a game-changing’ facility for the recycling of all kinds of
e-scrap. The Recycling Hub is a modern electronics recycling plant on a 25 000 m2
site south of Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone and close to the Abu Dhabi border. It has
the capacity to process 40 000 tonnes of electronics per year. In addition, it can
handle 50 000 tonnes of specialised waste including aerosol cans as well as car and
aircraft parts. ‘The reason we call it The Recycling Hub is because it is to become
the centre of e-scrap linking Africa and the Caucasus,’ says Fleming. ‘Also, it’s a hub
of learning for future entrepreneurs and the world is connecting through Dubai in
many ways and this will only increase.’ After Dubai, Fleming is now involved in set-
ting up similar projects in Africa and elsewhere under the Enviroserve flag.
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