We Got a Recycling Grant!

We mentioned a few weeks ago that we had some BIG THINGS in the works regarding recycling. Well, now we can tell you all about it!

We applied for the Idea Accelerator program with Builders & Backers, and were selected to receive a grant for a test of our recycling project. Builders & Backers is mentoring and facilitating our test project over the course of the summer.

Our test project has these parameters:

• Problem: Game publishers have no local options for recycled plastic parts fabricating, so they are forced to manufacture in China with virgin plastic and ship it half way around the world, which is environmentally unsound.
• Solution: We’ll provide an example to other game publishers that it’s possible for them to make commercially saleable plastic game parts (in this case, the Dice Miner mountain) out of the plastic waste they themselves otherwise put in the trash.

So we’re actually buying the equipment to produce Dice Miner mountains ourselves out of recycled plastic, and prototyping now, with Builders & Backers' help. Our internal goal is to get our warehouse to zero or negative plastic waste, by creating saleable products from that waste.

“It may not be very sexy, but it shows how even a small company can make a big environmental difference locally, if they just look around them and do what they can where they are.” says Michelle Nephew, co-owner of Atlas Games

Builders & Backers invests in "exceptional entrepreneurs who are building global-scale ventures to power an entirely different future -- one where technology creates value for many instead of capturing it for a few."  The Idea Accelerator is a rapid-pace, 90 day, virtual program to get ideas off the sidelines and into action.

We're very excited to be part of this, and want to thank Builder & Backers' national sponsor Heartland Forward and our local Duluth, MN sponsor Northland Foundation for choosing Atlas Games.