Waste to Energy Partners team members Ken Dunn, director of sustainability; Nate Murphy, vice president; Tony Wibbeler, CEO; and Will Drucker, director of sales and marketing

Waste to Energy Partners, Boulder, Colorado, was awarded the 2016 “Product of the Year” award from Environmental Leader Magazine at the fifth annual Environmental Leader Conference, held in Denver, CO, June 21-23, 2016. They were Recognized for developing a method to reclaim and repurpose used tires.

The company was recognized for its product Bolder Black, an alternative to “virgin” carbon black – an oil-derived product used in nearly all rubber and black plastic products. WEP transforms a portion of the 315 million waste tires generated in the US each year into Bolder Black using a proprietary process that is designed to be approximately 90 percent more efficient in water and electricity consumption and that generates significantly less greenhouse gas emissions than other existing alternatives.

“Bolder Black is a game changer,” says Tony Wibbeler, CEO and founder of Waste to Energy Partners. “With Bolder Black, manufacturers now have access to a high quality, financially compelling and environmentally superior alternative to carbon black, a raw material used in thousands of plastic and rubber products that has an incredibly negative environmental impact on the planet.”

“Our repurposed Bolder Black not only takes a really bad waste source—tires—out of the waste stream, it’s one of the highest quality products on the market,” Wibbeler continued. “Plus, our manufacturing facility in Missouri provides high quality jobs in an area of the US where they are much needed. By making just this one small change in material sourcing, manufacturers that use Bolder Black are making a meaningful favorable change in their environmental footprint.”

Judges of the Environmental Leader Awards applauded Bolder Black for providing a solution for addressing tire waste.

The Environmental Leader Award, sponsored by Environmental Leader Magazine, recognizes what it feels are original and successful projects and products achieving high standards toward contribution to energy and environmental efforts, innovation, efficiency, reliability and contribution to the bottom line. A panel of 34 judges award companies they feel are making the biggest difference in the field with a goal that showcasing brands to inform consumer decisions.