Starting today (Tuesday), diners at the McDonald’s chain in Brazil will eat on innovative, environmentally friendly food trays, manufactured by an Israeli start-up company. Using a unique technology that turns waste into a green plastic substitute, Arcos Duardos, McDonald’s largest franchisee in the world, will replace its plastic products in favor of materials that prevent environmental pollution.
The alternative raw material for plastic is a unique patent of the start-up company UBQ Materials from Kibbutz Tze’elim, which has developed technology that processes waste of all types, including organic waste, papers, plastic residues and more. The innovative technology breaks down the waste into molecular components and creates from them a new raw material used for the production of car spare parts, surfaces, cans, sports facilities and a variety of other products.
The new trays, along with the familiar McDonald’s logo, will also feature UBQ’s and will be a replacement for the old plastic trays. The move will start with branches in the Brazilian cities of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Brasilia, Manaus in the Amazon and more. The companies also note that the tray renewal project is just the tip of the iceberg in their potential collaboration, and they plan to develop more eco-friendly products for McDonald’s using UBQ’s raw material.
Tatu Biggio, CEO of UBQ Israel, said that every tonne processed at the plant means a solution to waste that otherwise the innovative venture would have decomposed after decades of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The production of one tonne of UBQ saves future emissions of 12 tonnes of polluting gases. ‘S and UBQ- will develop more products so that the network can reduce and even neutralize its carbon footprint.
UBQ Materials was established in 2012 by Yehuda Perl and Tato Biggio and the company’s R&D center is located in Kibbutz Tze’elim. In the US and the Netherlands. UBQ’s material has been certified by Quantis, the leading environmental impact assessment company, as the greenest thermoplastic material in the world.