MBA Polymers acquires new recycling plant for electronic equipment waste in Germany

US recycling company MBA Polymers has taken over a new production site in Mauna near Dresden. The site in Germany is held by the subsidiary MBA Polymers Germany GmbH. It will be MBA Polymers fifth recycling facility using its patented process producing post-consumer plastic. With this facility MBA Polymers says it will make use of the growing quantities of electrical and electronic equipment waste (WEEE) in Germany and Europe and the global demand for post-consumer plastics.

It plans to hire initially 20 specialists in the field of material flow and quality management. From January 2020 onwards 17,500 tonnes/year of WEEE will be processed in Mauna. The new site covers an area of 16,000 sq m, of which 5,500 sq m is production space.

In the plant, it will extract post-consumer plastics (ABS, HIPS, PP and PC/ABS) from WEEE. The material will further be separated and processed into high-quality plastics in what it says are complex and in-house developed processes.

MBA Polymers also adds that it is aiming to further expand its production activities in Germany.

The company was founded in California in 1997 by Mike Biddle who sold his shares, including all patents and intellectual property, to Elephant Equity, an investor in the field of waste management and recycling, in 2017.

Its production units in Guangzhou, China, and Austria have been operating since 2006, focusing on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). In 2010, it expanded to Worksop, UK, where it operates a facility in a joint venture with metal recycler EMR.

In 2017, the company also entered into the Indian market and signed cooperation agreements with several Indian waste management companies and a cooperation with Green Elephant Group, a Pune-based recycling company, to operate new production unit targeting initially a capacity of 50,000 tonnes/year of plastic waste.