Plastics News - Show Daily - October 25, 2022 - 10

10 * Plastics News, October 25, 2022
SHOW DAILY
UBQ takes the garbage
out of the garbage
UBQ MATERIALS
By James Snodgrass
Urethanes Technology International
In a rousing address that was
equal parts Greta Thunberg at her
most demanding and Elon Musk
at his most unbelievable ( " it's fi -
nancially insane to buy anything
other than a Tesla, " " full self- driving
... next year, I think " ), Albert
Douer expounded the extraordinary
vision for UBQ Materials.
UBQ, the name of a patented
thermoplastic material, and
UBQ Materials, the name of the
Tel Aviv, Israel-based company
that produces it, are about turning
landfi ll garbage into a unique
thermoplastic material.
Colombia-born Douer explained
that the UBQ process is
not a reason to stop recycling but
another step in the path to a circular
economy.
" People ask me, 'Should we stop
recycling, because you guys can
take it all?' and I say no, because if
we can take a PET bottle economically
and turn it back into food
packaging, that is exactly what we
should be doing, " he said.
" Recycling is part of the solution.
But it's not going to solve
everything. And, literally, this
is how I describe UBQ: We take
the garbage out of the garbage.
The stuff that no one else wants?
That's what we take. "
Douer said the landfi ll waste
UBQ processes - after metals
and minerals, which it cannot
convert, are removed - is normally
about 80-90 percent organic
material. Plastics only ever account
for somewhere between 1020
percent of landfi ll waste, contrary
to public perception.
" We're not taking a recycling
Join us in the BeOne World
of Sustainable Innovation
Experience the
Difference
Hall 14 A16/A18
route; we're actually converting
[the waste] into a new material, "
said Douer, " and that new material,
you can literally injection
mold, 100 percent, we can make
products out of UBQ. "
Another benefi t of the new material,
Douer suggested, is that it
makes product development easier
because it has characteristics
that make it compatible with different
material classes.
" I used to make polystyrene
cups. When I wanted to make
PET cups, I had to change all my
equipment: new extruders for the
thermoformer, new tooling. UBQ
is unique because its characteristics
make it actually compatible
with other classes. So you can actually
use existing equipment to
make your product far more environmental,
because you're able
to drop in one bit at a time, from
1 percent to 2 percent to 3 percent
to 20 percent to 50 percent,
depending on your product, and
without buying a new extruder.
" You can also, of course, in
the future, change your tool or
change your extruders so that
it's compatible [with 100 percent
UBQ], " he said.
Douer describes the process
as " the circular economy on steroids. "
At his most Musk-like,
he suggested that UBQ was actually
carbon-negative
because
it
stopped the development of
methane from degradation of
UBQ Materials co-CEO Albert Douer calls the
process " the circular economy on steroids. "
Plastics News photo by James Snodgrass
landfi ll waste.
" When we did our fi rst LCA
[life cycle analysis], something
really funny happened. And it was
something that all of the certifi ers
weren't used to, because their
mathematical models didn't allow
negative numbers of these things.
And all of a sudden, they do the
numbers for UBQ. And they say,
'Hey, you're not emitting carbon;
you're preventing carbon emissions.'
" So,
believe it or not, on a 20year
time frame, because of the
methane emissions all of those
organics cause, we're actually
talking almost negative 12 tonnes
of CO2 for every tonne of UBQ
produced. So we're talking about
a product that is extremely, extremely
Plan A carbon negative. "
Holding up a fl oormat, Douer
stressed the credibility of his offering:
" This is a fl oor mat. This
was done for an automotive manufacturer
that you guys will know,
Mercedes.
" And all of it started with a crazy
idea that everybody thought
would never be successful. And
then, little by little, it's an idea
that got believers. Tato Bigio, my
Hall 7/
Level 1,
Booth A44
VECOPLAN AG
Hall 9
Booth B41
co-CEO, was the fi rst
believer, and he drew
me in. And then, little
by little, we were
joined by people like
Vecoplan, like our suppliers,
they believed
in us. And today, we
have customers with
us. And I have to also
thank them, because
believe me, the fact
that a company like Mercedes
would be willing to take a risk on
a material that it hadn't heard of
before ... these are the things that
allow change. "
Douer's
iconoclastic
address
was something of a scene-stealer
at an Oct. 21 press event that
was actually held to demonstrate
Vecoplan's VAZ 2000-series shredding
machines for recycling.
But the Bad Marienberg, Germany-based
machinery manufacturer
has been a partner of UBQ
since 2013.
" Our cooperation began back
in 2013, when we helped with the
pilot plant in Israel, " said Martina
Schmidt, head of the recycling
and waste division at Vecoplan.
The Vecoplan announcement
was part of K's Circular Economy
Forum.
In December 2021, UBQ Materials
commissioned Vecoplan to
supply the mechanical processing
and storage technology for
its manufacturing plant in Bergen
op Zoom, Netherlands. The UBQ
plant, which is scheduled to become
operational in 2023, will
have an annual production capacity
of 80,000 tonnes.
Müller helps customers use less
By Bridget Janis
Plastics News Staff
Müller Technology, a tooling
and robotics company based in
Conthey, Switzerland, has been
working on ways to make thinwall
packaging even thinner.
" As a company, we start actually
from product development, so
we could work with the brands to
develop a new container, a new
package, then we can do the prototype
work, piloting, testing, all
the way to the production phase, "
said Taras Konowal, director of
sales at Müller.
Presenting at a shared booth
with Italian injection press supplier
BMB SpA, Müller is presenting
in-mold label technology for thinwall
packaging. The BMB machine
is running an eight-cavity mold
Konowal
MÜLLER
TECHNOLOGY
CONTHEY SA
Hall 13
Booth A33
with vision inspection
and
downstream
automation.
The system has been optimized
to produce the most product in
the fastest time, which can help
keep costs down. The visual inspection
helps assure that the
label is in the correct position on
the containers.
" For the packaging, you're pretty
much trying to get as many
products out of the machine
as fast as you can, "
Konowal said.
Müller's goal is to produce
even thinner plastic
containers. The company
is also helping customers
make hybrid packaging,
combining paperboard
with a plastic structure.
In some projects, the use of paperboard
has reduced the plastic
by 75 percent. Müller started using
paperboard about a year ago.
" Right now, I think it's the next
step, " Konowal said. " So, it's plastic
reduction and there's a lot of
people talking about getting rid of
plastic completely. "
Müller has two locations, Switzerland
and Fort Collins, Colo. It
sells about 80-100 robots and 3540
molds annually.
duce even thinner plastic
containers. The company
is also helping customers
make hybrid packaging,
combining paperboard
with a plastic structure.
http://www.jumbosteel-tw.com
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