I’m sure most of you know that Israel has been leading the world in water conservation and reuse for decades.  (You do read my blog, right?  Here’s but one example.)

Well, now there’s another group, UBQ Materials (the company is in Tel Aviv, but the factory is in Kibutz Tze’Elim, Negev) that is using technology to truly recycle our waste. 2 billion tons of it each year.  Taking mounds of garbage, diverting it from the landfill, and then creating plastic-type pellets to be used to make packing crates, trays, and other useful items.  Besides handling our waste problems, this could also reduce the production of methane (from the landfills), which is even worse than carbon dioxide in its global warming effects.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/players/offsite/index.html?videoId=100000006841131″

Before we progress.  Let’s invalidate the propaganda we’ve been told is gospel truth.  That we recycle our garbage.  5 of 7 types of plastics never get recycled at all.  The same applies for paper. Here’s another fact- only 8.4% of the plastics that we are told to put in that little blue bin (and even that is not all the plastic we throw away) got reused in 2017.    The rest ended up in landfills or the oceans.  (We also can’t ship our garbage overseas like we used to- because those countries like China and the Philippines have figure out the big con already.)

That’s what makes this UBQ process so interesting!

It seems that the plastics in our waste combine with the organics (food waste, etc.) that yields a homogeneous substance when undergoing the UBQ process.  That material is augmented in its strength by the organics that create fibers in the plastic.  The process operates around 400 degrees, which degrades the organic matter, and the material undergoes additional physico-chemical processing.

Now, not all waste can be so processed, but way more than that 8.6% we are reusing now.   All the waste about to processed by the UBQ process is culled of both ferrous and non-ferrous metals before it is shredded.  If one is hoping to injection mold the material, then rocks and glass must also be removed.  That’s it- and those are but a small fraction of our waste stream.  Moreover, if one is hoping to create a brick-like material for construction from the waste, even less processing is required.

The metals and glass removed are shipped to recyclers.  (And, those materials have a thriving marketplace!)   And, no water is used in this process, so there is no need for any water treatment, either.

Right now, there seems to be just one customer.  Plasgad, an Israeli firm, produced crates and pallets.  (Some of those materials are in the possession of Central Virginia Waste Management Authority [Richmond, VA].)  They obviously need more- a lot more.

 

UBQ Materials has been around for about 7 years.  Among the testing involved using UBQ in injection molding- but not all of it was UBQ materials.  The company started with a 10%UBQ/90%plastic mix.  Eventually working their way up to 90%UBQ/10% plastic.

And, the UBQ material seems to be able to be recycled way more than once- as opposed to many plastics that only survive one or two cycles of use.  (Just so you know, Sweden will be the first [and only] place where Coca Cola will reuse ALL bottles they sell.  That’s 3500 tons of virgin PET no longer in use.)

The current facility can only process about 5 kilotons a year.  They are hoping to build one (in North America) that can process 20X that amount soon.

Let’s hope this become ubiquitous soon!