News Release
October 2004

MBA Polymers, Inc. and Mueller-Guttenbrunn GmbH form Historic Joint Venture in Europe

October 2004, Kematen, Austria: MBA Polymers, Inc. (MBA) of Richmond, California, USA and Mueller-Guttenbrunn GmbH (MG) of Amstetten, Austria announced the formation of a joint venture company (JV) to build and operate a state-of-the-art plastics recycling facility in Austria. The joint venture plans to begin operation of a 40,000 ton per year plant by the end of 2005.

The announcement was made at a ceremony in Kematen, Austria, the future home for the plant. Speakers at the event included Dr. Erwin Proell the governor of Lower Austria; Ernest Gabmann, Minister of Economics of Lower Austria; KR Herbert Mueller-Guttenbrunn, Chairman and Managing Director of Mueller-Guttenbrunn and Dr. Michael Biddle, Chairman and CEO of MBA Polymers and several other government officials.

Austria considers this business to be a very attractive addition to the country and has proposed significant support for the project. Dr. Proell spoke about the economic, environmental and social benefits that this new business will create for the Lower Austria province and Austria overall

MBA Polymers owns 51% of the JV and MG owns 49%. MBA brings technology, know-how, customers and suppliers to the JV while MG provides some raw material, local and national experience working in Europe, important government contacts and relations and its metal recycling background.

The new Company, called MBA Polymers Austria - Kunststoffverarbeitung GmbH, will process highly mixed plastics resulting from the legislated take-back and recycling of durable goods such as appliances and electrical equipment. This recycling is taking place on a very large scale in Europe, where the producer- responsibility legislation has been implemented.

This plant will complement a similar plant that is being constructed in Guangzhou China with a JV MBA formed earlier this year with Guangzhou Iron and Steel Enterprises.

This new plant will be built in Kematen, Austria, which is about 100 km west of Vienna and next door to Mueller-Guttenbrunn’s advanced metal recycling operations called METRAN. METRAN will provide some of the feedstock for the new plant.

Strategic Location
The new plant is in an excellent location within Europe, situated between large feedstocks from the durable goods recycling infrastructure developing in Western Europe and the growing manufacturing and plastics molding base in Eastern Europe.

Ideal Timing
The scheduled timing of the plant construction and operation is also excellent. The plant is expected come on line shortly after the August 2005 mandated implementation of the EU-wide WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronics Equipment) takeback and recycling legislation. Billions of pounds per year of durable goods are already being shredded to recover the metals.

What remains after the shredding and metal recovery processes is billions of pounds of mixed plastics. These highly mixed plastic streams represent a valuable resource, but are too complicated to be recycled by traditional techniques and are usually landfilled or incinerated.

Timing Coincides with Significant Anniversaries for both Companies
In another interesting aspect with respect to timing, Dr. Biddle noted that this year, 2004, marked the 10th anniversary of MBA Polymers’ founding and the 50th anniversary of Mueller-Guttenbrun’s founding. He said “It is quite fitting that both companies are commemorating these important company milestones with such an exciting new opportunity that will benefit so many.”

Dr. Biddle said, “MBA has worked for over ten years and invested over $28 million to develop its highly advanced technology and this new plastics business. Over those ten years, MBA has worked with government agencies and trade organizations around the world, the plastics industry, and the largest computer, electronics, appliance and automobile companies in the world to provide a better home for the plastics from end-of-life durable products and to provide the manufacturers with ‘green’ materials for their new products. These efforts help create more sustainable manufacturing activities in all of the connected industries: automotive, appliances, computers and business equipment, electronics, and plastics.”

Mr. Herbert Mueller-Guttenbrunn, MG’s Chairman, said: “We invested significantly in advanced nonferrous metal recovery about twenty years ago so we could recover a higher percent of the material from our recycling activities. This is the next logical step in recovering more material from these streams, especially because the plastics have become such a significant portion of the goods we recycle, such as automobiles, appliances and electronics. Not only does this make good economic sense, it will help our country and suppliers meet the legislated recycle rate targets.”

MBA and MG consider this announcement a major milestone for both companies and Europe in general because the EU currently represents the highest concentration of raw material and customers in the world for this type of plant.

MBA and MG also believe that this JV represents not only an important business for both companies, it provides large social and environmental benefits as well. The two companies expect this business to be a model for a trend that should provide benefits beyond normal geographic and time boundaries. Not only can all parts of the world use this type of business, the benefits should be realized by many generations to come.

In conversations after the official ceremony, Dr. Michael Biddle, MBA’s cofounder and CEO, provided some examples of the ‘win-win’ benefits that are particularly important in these times of high energy costs and associated high plastics costs:

“Rather than build expensive and energy-consuming chemical plants, our company provides a way for Europe to manufacture the plastics it needs at significantly lower economic and environmental costs.”

Two examples of the environmental benefits include:

1. Similar to aluminum recycling, MBA’s process consumes less than 10% of the energy than it takes to make the equivalent amount of plastics from traditional chemical plants. This significant benefit will obviously become even more important as oil becomes more scarce and expensive.
2. For every single ton of “new” plastics replaced, 2-3 tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is kept from being emitted into the atmosphere! This has significant implications for the entire world as global warming is beginning to cause significant changes to the environment and life on our planet.

Dr. Biddle spoke very highly of MG. He said: “We are extremely pleased to be launching this business with our highly respected partner, Mueller-Guttenbrunn. We have been very impressed with the MG team. Besides great people, there are some impressive business and strategic synergies between the two companies.”

About MBA Polymers, Inc. www.mbapolymers.com
MBA has its headquarters in Richmond, California, USA, where it carries out R&D and operates a state-of-the-art large pilot plastics recycling facility. MBA has developed its technology and this business over the last ten years and is considered a world leader at the recycling plastics from end-of-life durable products. In 2002, MBA won the 2002 Edison award for Innovation and was identified as one of America’s Most Innovative companies by Inc. magazine. Earlier this year MBA launched a JV in China with Guangzhou Iron and Steel Enterprises. That JV has a 40,000-ton per year plant under construction in Guangzhou, China, which is expected to being operation in mid-2005.

About Mueller-Guttenbrunn www.mueller-guttenbrunn.at
Müller-Guttenbrunn is the largest metal recycling company in Austria. Its headquarters and largest recycling plant are in Amstetten, Austria, but it also operates businesses in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Liechtenstein. Besides operating shredding plants, Müller-Guttenbrunn was one of the first companies in Europe to establish advanced nonferrous metal recovery business and has won awards in recycling of metals.

Additional Information: Dr. Mike Biddle, CEO, mbiddle@mbapolymers.com and mbap1mb@aol.com (use both as one works better while traveling). US office: 510-231-9031, ext. 101. Mobile phone: 510-701-7516

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