2018 Winner
Wise 50 Over 50 Award™
Kambiz Taheri – Polymer Research Technologies
www.polyresearchtech.com
Having been involved in the polymer industry for more that 25 years, I had witnessed the huge problem of landfilling and the vast destructive impact it had on our environment in numerous sectors of the industry. When I moved to Canada in 2007, I decided that Canada could offer the perfect platform for R&D work in the field of resource optimization and established Polymer Research to attempt to solve this landfilling issues, as one of industries major pain points.
I started Polymer Research Technologies Ltd. (“PRT”) at the age of 50. It’s a privately held Canadian Research company, established in 2007, with a proprietary technology of chemical conversion of polyurethane waste foams, that are presently being land filled all across the globe, into a reusable, valuable chemical commodity, trademarked Recyclopol™, thus offering a sustainable, environmentally acceptable, and low cost substitute raw material as a solution to a $80B polyurethane industry waste management problem.
PRT is the recipient of several prestigious awards (BCIC New Ventures Clean Technology Award, CME award and the USTCI Canadian Excellence award). PRT is one of the very select few companies in Canada to have successfully been approved for $1.2M funding from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) for PRT’s pilot plant pre commercialization phase.
PRT, in collaboration with major polyurethane companies, such as Woodbridge Group, Johnson Control, Recticel, Ford motors corp, Kingspan Group and Noram Engineering, is in the process of establishing a 1.MT pilot plant in Burnaby.
PRT’s Recyclopol™ production commercialization path will generate 25 jobs and be through licensing, Joint ventures with industry partners, and own and operate production plant scenarios, will contribute to the growth of our community.
My objective has been, and is, to contribute to the sustainability of our environment and offer my expertise and time to develop new innovative, and economical technologies to solve this global issue.