A solution bordering on fantasy – that was our first thought when we read about the new material. It is a thermoplastic obtained by recycling ordinary household waste, including organic waste, at a plant in the Netherlands.

The company is called UBQ Materials and in addition to production in the Netherlands, there are already representative offices in Israel and Florida. The presented material is suitable for a huge number of plastic products, excluding those in direct contact with food products. According to the manufacturer, this thermoplastic is smoothly introduced into existing production lines and is subject to further processing. Moreover, as stated, this material after processing and unlike ordinary plastic does not lose its original properties and retains them for 10 cycles.

The production process of the material begins with sorting the waste and separating metals, minerals and glass, which are then sent for appropriate processing. Then all organic waste is broken down into its most basic components: lignin, cellulose, collagens, sugars. After that, the inorganic materials associated with this matrix are reconstructed into a new biological thermoplastic composite - UBQ. The resulting material is a single patented homogeneous composite that can be widely used in production. Products made from UBQ look the same as products made from traditional plastics.

Production was scaled up quite recently, at the end of spring this year, but the company has already managed to work with such giants as PepsiCo, McDonald’s and Mercedes Benz.

Materials from the sites ubqmaterials.com, packaginginsights.com were used.