Former CPIA leader Mark Badger heading new green solutions spinoff

Mark Badger, the former head of the Canadian Plastics Industry Association, is playing a key role in a new spinoff company that specializes in the design and operation of customized green chemical process technologies.

Badger, who stepped down as president and CEO of the CPIA at the end of March, is now the CEO of Switchable Solutions Inc., a company that describes itself as “taking aim at some of the world’s most pervasive environmental challenges, from plastic recycling to oil sands processing.”

Switchable Solutions is the first spinoff company of Kingston, Ont.-based GreenCentre Canada, a privately- and publicly-funded company that develops environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional chemical and manufacturing products and practices. The centre is located at Innovation Park at Queen’s University in Kingston.

“Mark brings to Switchable Solutions a wealth of experience in strategic planning, product development, finance and marketing,” said Dr. Rui Resendes, executive director of GreenCentre. “His experience at the CPIA, coupled with his immersion in industrial problem-solving and innovation, make him the perfect choice to lead this very exciting new company.”

Switchable Solutions is currently marketing a solvent system designed to separate and reclaim a range of plastics materials. The solvent is said to be of low toxicity, green, and reusable, and can be used and manipulated at ambient temperature and pressure without the use of energy-intensive and expensive distillation.

The company’s first targets are post-consumer polystyrene, commonly used as food and beverage containers, and expandable polystyrene foam (EPS), used for protective packaging. “Currently these two materials are landfilled because polystyrene is often contaminated with plastics or organic materials as food waste, and the bulk relative to weight of EPS makes it difficult and uneconomical to ship, store and process,” Resendes said. “Switchable Solutions’ green solvent makes it possible to separate and reclaim both types of polystyrene into reusable pellets, potentially diverting as much as 50,000 tons from landfills every year in Ontario alone.”