Automotive & Transportation

Waste-derived Thermoplastic UBQ Continues to Expand its End-Use Applications

Jack “Tato” Bigio, co-founder and co-CEO of UBQ Materials, outside the firm’s headquarters in Tel Aviv. Courtesy UBQ Materials

Israeli firm UBQ Materials secures new funding, develops building components for McDonald’s franchise

UBQ Materials Ltd., the Israeli developer of advanced materials made from everyday waste, has secured $70 million in funding, expanded its partnership with a McDonald’s franchisee in Latin America, and recently won a couple of sustainability awards.

Founded in 2012, UBQ Materials developed its patented product and manufacturing process over the next five years. Using its advanced conversion technology, the company –– now a certified B Corp –– created what it calls the world’s first bio-based thermoplastic, made entirely from unsorted residual household waste, including all organics and difficult-to-recycle materials.

Tel Aviv-based UBQ announced in mid-September that it had secured $70 million in funding, led by Eden Global Partners. Additional participants in the financing were return investors in the company, including TPG Rise Climate, TPG’s Rise Fund, Battery Ventures, and M&G’s Catalyst strategy.

Planning aggressive global expansion

UBQ’s reprocessed waste bio-based thermoplastics take many forms. Courtesy Wikimedia

The company says the investment will support a commercial, sales and marketing scale-up, as it continues its global expansion. Plans include additional facilities in Europe and North America, along with the impending opening of UBQ’s industrial-scale facility in Bergen Op Zoom, Netherlands. That new facility will have an annual production capacity of 160,000 million pounds of UBQ-brand materials, converting 230.6 million pounds of waste annually into a new raw material.

“UBQ as a sustainable material option can have a huge impact –– but only with mass adoption. This means building UBQ facilities on a world-scale, which requires significant expansion and funding,” said Albert Douer, Co-CEO and Chairman of UBQ Materials. “Adding Eden Global Partners to our heavy-hitting investor list fuels our rapid growth trajectory …”.

Moving beyond McTrays in McD’s

Separately, UBQ Materials announced last month that it is expanding its partnership with Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc., the world’s largest independent McDonald’s franchisee. Buenos Aires, Argentina-based Arcos Dorados has become the first UBQ partner to implement building components “Made with UBQ.”

Buenos Aires-based McDonald’s franchisee Arcos Dorados has become the first UBQ partner to implement building components, such as these bench structures, using UBQ’s material. Courtesy UBQ Materials

The new electrical conduits, connection boxes, and modular wood boards will be showcased in Arcos Dorados’ São Paulo-based restaurant designed to highlight the company’s various sustainability initiatives. This builds on the two companies’ previous collaboration, which led to the introduction in January 2021 of sustainable food service trays –– called McTrays –– also “Made with UBQ”. These trays are now being used in McDonald’s restaurants across Brazil and the Caribbean.

To create the new reduced-emissions electrical conduits and connection boxes, Brazil’s Tigre Group, the largest pipe manufacturer in Latin America, collaborated with UBQ Materials to develop an environmentally friendly solution using UBQ that maintained all the functional performance required for the electrical system.

Similarly, UBQ Materials worked with Brazilian manufacturer Industria Madeplast to incorporate UBQ into modular wood boards in the bench structures of the restaurant –– the first time UBQ has been incorporated into wooden building components.

Arcos Dorados first partnered with UBQ to develop these McTray food serving trays, which they introduced in 2021. Courtesy UBQ Materials

Automotive applications earn honors

UBQ Materials is also working to create solutions for the automotive sector. This summer it won the Plug and Play Sustainability Award together with German automotive supplier and ecosystem partner, Maxion Wheels, for returnable plastic pallets and separators “Made with UBQ.”

And on Sept. 28 UBQ Materials won an award from the Washington, D.C.-based Suppliers Partnership for the Environment, together with automotive supplier Consolidated Metco Inc. and Israeli specialty compounder Polyram Plastic Industries Ltd., for developing a reduced-carbon-footprint material for automotive applications. The three partners earned SP’s 2023 “Demonstrating Environmental Innovation in the Manufacturing Process Award” for developing a short-glass-fiber polypropylene compound that incorporates UBQ.

The Israeli firm declares that every kilogram of its UBQ material replaces 1 kg of oil-based plastic, diverts 1.3 kg of waste from landfills and incinerators, and prevents up to 11.7 kg of CO₂eq emissions measured over a 20-year time horizon.

By Robert Grace | October 2, 2023