What is this material and why is it important?
At 35,000 tons per year, this manufactured by-product mixture represents 18% of landfilled waste for a major producer of fiberglass products and cost them more than $500,000 per year. It is a mixture of glass chunks, fibers,and granules that eluded a reuse solution for decades.
What does the science say?
Waste Hub recognized the potential value of dragline shot as an abrasive and tested its particle size distribution, hardness, and other characteristics. We designed and built a process to dewater and convert 90% of the material into abrasive and other useful materials. A new business was launched called 10X Engineered Materials and this material is now being produced and sold at high margin.
What is the business opportunity?
This is an example of the broad opportunities available to the participants in the circular economy who can apply some creativity and connect the market dots. This waste has been transformed and created a business which is expected to expand globally to address this industry wide waste disposal problem.