MAS CEO Martin Schnabl on his 10th anniversary

Mar­tin Schn­abl has been CEO of MAS Aus­tria since June 2014. Dur­ing this time, the com­pa­ny has expe­ri­enced exten­sive growth and has con­tin­u­ous­ly expand­ed its excep­tion­al role in the recy­cling and upcy­cling of plas­tics with inno­v­a­tive, resource-sav­ing, and ener­gy-effi­cient prod­ucts. We spoke to our Man­ag­ing Direc­tor and looked back on the last ten years in detail.

 

How quickly have the last ten years passed?

The last ten years have flown by! ! It feels incred­i­ble when I think back to how in the begin­ning, we sat togeth­er with our com­pa­ny founder Hel­muth Schulz at the meet­ing table, in the assem­bly hall, or with the design­er. A lot of new things were cre­at­ed; it was a time with a hands-on men­tal­i­ty. When I joined MAS ten years ago, I was orig­i­nal­ly sup­posed to opti­mize the eco­nom­ic and com­mer­cial area.

How­ev­er, it soon became clear that I would take over the man­age­ment of the entire com­pa­ny. Under my lead­er­ship, MAS has devel­oped from a start-up into a lead­ing com­pa­ny in the plas­tics indus­try. Although I came from the steel indus­try, I was able to suc­cess­ful­ly famil­iar­ize myself with the new field and dri­ve the com­pa­ny for­ward.

The last ten years have passed incred­i­bly quick­ly, and I am proud of what we have achieved.

 

 

 

How much has the recycling industry changed over the last ten years?

I think the recy­cling indus­try has changed and pro­fes­sion­al­ized mas­sive­ly in the last decade. One of the biggest changes has been the increased imple­men­ta­tion of par­tial­ly com­plex tech­nol­o­gy into the recy­cling process. New sort­ing and sep­a­ra­tion tech­nolo­gies have also made it pos­si­ble to work more effi­cient­ly and recy­cle a wider range of materials—provided the appro­pri­ate extru­sion tech­nol­o­gy is used (Mr. Schn­abl can’t help but smile).

The most impor­tant fact is that we have all become much more aware of envi­ron­men­tal issues and the need to con­serve resources. This has led to a rise in pub­lic inter­est in recy­cling and increased efforts by gov­ern­ments and com­pa­nies to pro­mote recy­cling pro­grams. Prices for vir­gin plas­tics should be set in a time­ly and envi­ron­men­tal­ly con­scious man­ner. If recy­cling is to be tak­en seri­ous­ly, recy­cled prod­ucts must be giv­en a real chance. We need to re-eval­u­ate the envi­ron­men­tal impact of new plas­tic prod­ucts. . Recy­cling not only saves resources, but also _CO2.

Over­all, the recy­cling indus­try has become an impor­tant pil­lar of the recy­cling econ­o­my over the last ten years, and I know that this will go in the right direc­tion.

 

How do you see the development of MAS in recent years? Is MAS ready for the future with its innovations?

MAS has under­gone impres­sive devel­op­ment in recent years and estab­lished itself as one of the lead­ing play­ers in upscale plas­tics recy­cling and upcy­cling. . The com­pa­ny has devel­oped from a start-up in a niche sec­tor into a gen­uine pio­neer that can eas­i­ly com­pete with the big com­pa­nies inter­na­tion­al­ly. It is the out­stand­ing prod­ucts, tech­nolo­gies, and inno­va­tions MAS has cre­at­ed that make the com­pa­ny com­pet­i­tive in the long term.

MAS is there­fore undoubt­ed­ly fit for the future, as our pio­neer­ing work has brought for­ward-look­ing tech­nolo­gies to the mar­ket. But we are not rest­ing on our lau­rels. A con­tin­u­ous focus on tech­ni­cal opti­miza­tion, research and devel­op­ment, and con­stant advance­ment of our pre­sen­ta­tion and busi­ness prac­tices are essen­tial to remain suc­cess­ful in a dynam­ic mar­ket envi­ron­ment. And this is how we do it. The focus is on “doing”.

Despite glob­al chal­lenges, such as crises, con­flicts, and fluc­tu­at­ing oil prices, we have proven that we and our com­pa­ny are resilient and can even emerge stronger from such sit­u­a­tions. Over­all, I would say that MAS is ide­al­ly posi­tioned to con­tin­ue to play a sig­nif­i­cant role in the field of plas­tics recy­cling and beyond.

 

 

What roles do energy efficiency, resource conservation, and cost optimization play today?

Good ques­tion, yes, but the answer is very sim­ple. These buzz­words play THE key role when it comes to impor­tant busi­ness deci­sions. This is already the case, and soon even more so!

In the face of increas­ing envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems and cli­mate change, the need to con­serve our nat­ur­al resources and min­i­mize our eco­log­i­cal foot­print is greater than ever. Com­pa­nies need to improve their ener­gy effi­cien­cy to cut costs while reduc­ing their envi­ron­men­tal impact.

Con­serv­ing resources is also of great impor­tance, as many raw mate­ri­als are finite and demand for them con­tin­ues to rise. By recy­cling and upcy­cling plas­tics and using resources effi­cient­ly, com­pa­nies can not only improve their envi­ron­men­tal foot­print but also reduce their depen­dence on scarce raw mate­ri­als.

Cost opti­miza­tion is anoth­er cru­cial fac­tor, espe­cial­ly in a com­pet­i­tive mar­ket envi­ron­ment. Com­pa­nies must con­stant­ly look for ways to reduce their oper­at­ing costs to remain com­pet­i­tive. This can be achieved by increas­ing effi­cien­cy, opti­miz­ing process­es, and using inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies, which is exact­ly what our prod­ucts ensure. We even have an ener­gy cal­cu­la­tor on our web­site !

Nowa­days, these are no longer option­al goals; they are busi­ness-crit­i­cal imper­a­tives that sig­nif­i­cant­ly influ­ence the long-term sur­vival and suc­cess of com­pa­nies. We offer all of this in one; that’s what makes us suc­cess­ful!

 

Finally, looking back, what makes you particularly proud?

I am proud of …

… my team and my employ­ees.
… our prod­ucts, tech­nolo­gies, and inno­va­tions.
… my con­tri­bu­tion to the devel­op­ment and the suc­cess of MAS.