MBA Polymers enters European joint venture

Recycling Today, Dec, 2004

MBA Polymers Inc. (MBA), Richmond, Calif., and Mueller-Guttenbrunn GmbH (MG) of Amstetten, Austria, have formed a joint venture company to build and operate a plastics recycling plant in Kematen, Austria. MBA owns 51 percent of the joint venture, and MG owns 49 percent.

The new company MBA Polymers Austria--Kunststoffverarbeitung GmbH will process highly mixed plastics resulting from the legislated take-back and recycling of durable goods, such as appliances and electrical equipment, which takes place on a large scale in Europe.

MBA and MG expect the processing plant, with a capacity of 40,000 tons per year, to come on line shortly after the August 2005 mandated implementation of the EU-wide WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronics Equipment) take-back and recycling legislation.

The plant complements a similar plant being constructed in Guangzhou, China, through a join venture between MBA and Guangzhou Iron and Steel Enterprises.

The plant will be located next door to MG's advanced metal recycling operations METRAN and will be between large feedstocks from the durable goods recycling infrastructure developing in Western Europe and the growing manufacturing and plastics molding base in Eastern Europe.

Biddle says that during the last 10 years, MBA has worked with government agencies, trade organizations and various industries "to provide a better home for the plastics from end-of-life durable products and to provide the manufacturers with 'green' materials for their new products," helping to create more sustainable manufacturing in the automotive, appliance, computer and business equipment and electronics industries.

MBA Polymers is headquartered in Richmond, Calif., where it carries out R&D and operates a large pilot plastics recycling facility.

Muller-Guttenbrunn is the largest metal recycling company in Austria. Its headquarters and largest recycling plant are in Amstetten, Austria, but it also operates in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Liechtenstein.