Global leaders in plastics and metals recycling join forces to recycle plastics from shredder residue

European Metal Recycling Limited (EMR) of England, and MBA Polymers, Inc. of California, USA, the leader at recycling high-value plastics from complex waste streams and end-of-life durable goods, announced earlier to build a joint venture company in the UK for plastics recycling.

The new company, called MBA Polymers UK, is majority owned by MBA Polymers and will recover plastics from upgraded "shredder residue". This shredder residue is a complex plastics-rich mixture of materials resulting from the recycling of automobiles, appliances and other metal-rich streams.

EMR is concentrating the plastics fraction of the shredder residue produced from its large-scale metal recycling operations. This additional processing will also allow EMR to capture a higher percentage of the metals.

The joint venture will receive the concentrated plastics-rich material from EMR's facilities and will clean, sort and upgrade the plastics, and then sell the high-quality plastics to MBA's customers.

The joint venture plans to begin operation of a 60,000 ton per year processing plant by early 2009.