And thank you for being a man. You told me 6 months to make a difference and it's just over 6 months and you have had the courage and conviction to step down. You have obviously realised that the problems and issues at DYA are entirely internal and that you, as then CEO, could not overcome them. Ego, blind-stupidity and narcissism cannot be overcome by one man. As the issue(s) are entirely top-driven I wonder "Tim" will have the smarts and testicular fortitude to look Fairfull in the eye and tell him to crate-up his Egyptian brothel furniture, take it to Ajax (maybe store it in the carpenter house) and never enter Brock Road again. Then, and only then might we see sales. Tell you what Tim, add a line to the contract guaranteeing buyers/agents/distributors that they will never have to deal with "Teflon Tom" again. Read this forum Tim, like every shareholder does. Read it often. Type "Dynamic Fuels" into Google/Yahoo just like anyone doing DD would do, as a shareholder or prospective customer. Jerry has my number. But to start with....................

Tell us where the 80 units went Tim, or at least who pocketed the coin.

Get the facts on the TSSA.

And don't forget that your Chairman's past is full and centre:

When Firestone recalled about 14.4 million faulty tires enough to fill Toronto's SkyDome twice this past August, environmental groups everywhere were probably wondering: what exactly does the company plan to do with them all? Some would undoubtedly be recycled, but let's face it: the marketplace can handle only so many pairs of recycled-tire sandals and so much crumb rubber. Chances are most of those recalled tires will end up with 950 million others in one of 3,000 stockpiles across North America.

Or Firestone could stick them into a huge microwave oven and nuke 'em. That's Bob Bryniak's suggestion, anyhow. Bryniak is president and CEO of Environmental Waste International Inc. (formerly EWMC International Inc.), based in Ajax, Ont., and he thinks his company has found the solution to one of the world's biggest problems: how to get rid of hazardous materials without dumping them or pumping toxins and ozone-depleting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through incineration. EWI's patented reverse polymerization technology uses magnetrons, or microwave energy, to break down carbon-based substances everything from old computers, paint and mattresses to sewer sludge, human bodies and animal waste to their natural elements.

In the case of tires, that means steel, carbon black (the stuff that keeps them together), oil, and gases like methane that can be used to generate electricity. As the world gets more serious about the environment and tires continue to pile up businesses are frantically looking for ways to deal with their waste problems. The European Union (EU) has introduced legislation forcing companies to recycle tires, and most US states have banned landfilling them. Many jurisdictions have also outlawed the use of rubber filler under roadways after a highway in Washington state caught fire on a hot summer's day in 1996 and burned for three weeks meaning that companies in the crumb rubber business are out of luck. "And they''re just turning a bigger problem into a smaller one," says Bryniak.
Not only does EWI''s technology reduce tires to recyclable components without producing toxins; it can actually generate money. At full production, one of its TR-6000 tire disposal units, which costs about US$15 million and processes 6,000 tires a day, produces enough gas to generate 47 million kilowatt hours of electricity, which could power more than 2,000 homes for a year. With EWI''s built-in co-generator, companies can produce the 24 million kilowatt hours of electricity it takes to keep the machine going and sell the excess, along with tonnes of steel, oil and carbon black. (US-based Continental Tires has agreed to buy any carbon black produced by EWI machines.) In fact, says Bryniak, the TR-6000 can generate revenue of up to $7.5 million a year. "There are very few things in the environmental area where you can actually make money," he says. "This is one of them."
EWI has also tackled the medical waste market. Hospitals in North America pump out four million tonnes of sludge needles, blood, IV bags, body parts and syringes every year, 10% of it infectious. The vast majority of that is incinerated, but the process releases harmful emissions and, while it does kill pathogens, it creates toxins and dioxins that are extremely harmful. And burning waste is on the way out: the US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 80% to 90% of incinerators in the US will be shut down by 2003, and the EU has imposed strict guidelines on member countries.
That''s where EWI comes in. Or so it hopes. Hospitals can simply dump medical waste into one of its MD-1000 disposal units, where it is treated and ground up. The process reduces weight and volume by 80% and sterilizes the hazardous material by 99.9999%. "You can put it in landfills or use it as a filler in asphalt or bricks," says Bryniak.
Pretty impressive. EWI''s financials, however, are less so. When Bryniak took over in September 1999, EWI owed 25 creditors about $1.2 million, and then-CEO Thomas Fairfull, a former jewelry and ceramics dealer, had laid off all 50 of the company''s employees. Even the heating had been cut off in its 25,000-square-foot building overlooking Highway 401 northeast of Toronto. Shares were selling for pennies, and longtime shareholders were getting panicky.
A little more than a year later, EWI''s debt is down to $200,000, and Bryniak has worked out a payment schedule with the remaining creditors. Currently, the company is seeking a private placement worth as much as $2 million. Bryniak has even managed to assemble a board of directors with a couple of US heavyweights, including Emanuel Gerard, executive chairman of New York-based banking firm Gerard, Klauer, Mattison & Co. Inc., and John Fox, who did a stint on President George Bush''s council on environmental quality and who now heads up Perseus LLC, a Washington, DC-based venture capital firm specializing in energy. "Incineration is less and less of an option, so any solution in that space starts to be of interest," says Fox. "This technology appears to provide some options that are certainly superior to what is happening now, and it''s a product that at least in the early stage could find some pretty neat and profitable ventures to operate in."
Bryniak hopes so. While he has yet to sell a tire unit, he made the company's first sale of a million-dollar MD-1000 medical waste disposal unit to EWT International, an Ireland-based waste management company, and he's got a couple more deals in the works. That''s something Fairfull hadn't been able to do in 10 years. EWI stock (CDNX: YEW) is now trading at 50¢, up 42¢ from September of last year. "I broke all my major tenets when I bought into this company, where I trusted the technology but didn't trust the management," says Paul Orlin, a general partner with New York investment house Porter, Felleman Inc., which took a stake in EWI back in 1996, when the stock was trading at US$1.50. He''s not worried, though. "This is a potentially revolutionary technology," says Orlin. "It could change the world if we get this in the right spot."
When engineer Charles Leslie Emery started experimenting with putting wood in microwaves back in 1988, he had no idea what to expect. Along with partner Steven Kantor, Emery rented out a basement in tiny Colborne, Ont., built a souped-up microwave the "pizza oven," as it came to be known and started doing experiments with drying and pressure-treating wood. The two had some minor success and sold the contraption to a local wood-processing company.
Rubber was a different story. "The first time we put rubber into the machine, it caught on fire," recalls Kantor, now EWI's technical director. "That''s when we figured we had to get rid of the oxygen. The second time, we put the rubber into a glass jar and stunk out the building. People went home sick that day."
Not too long after that, Emery died of natural causes at the age of 82, but Kantor kept trying to perfect the rubber process. "Then we ran out of money," he says. Enter Fairfull, who took over the company and moved it to its current building in Ajax. A reverse takeover of a mining company on the Alberta Stock Exchange followed, and EWI''s stock soared from $3.50 to a high of $8.50.
Over the next six years, Fairfull burned through about $30 million on research and development (the R&D department consisted of Kantor and one engineer, Doug Norton). He also spent a fair chunk of change renovating the Ajax building, installing stereo speakers in the ceilings, electronic locks and security cameras. He spiffed up his huge office with green hardwood floors, posh leather armchairs and even an en suite bathroom. By the fall of 1999, the digital stock ticker Fairfull had installed in the company''s boardroom showed that EWI shares were trading at 8¢.
In his slightly shiny blue suit, black T-shirt and funky, plastic-rimmed glasses, Bryniak looks out of place in the office he inherited from his predecessor and more than a little uncomfortable. He''s quick to point out the reno was Fairfull''s doing, not his own. Small bottles of carbon black, oil and steel are scattered everywhere Bryniak''s own decorating touches. "Management was able to do the research and development, but it was unable to take it to market," he says. "Another two weeks and the company would have been bankrupt."
It''s a good thing Bryniak had some serious managerial experience. An economist by training, he was a senior vice-president in charge of 1,500 employees at Ontario Power Generation (OPG), where he''d been working 23 years, when EWI approached the utility looking for money. OPG wasn''t interested, but Bryniak was. "I was flabbergasted by what the technology could do," he says. Four years later, OPG offered Bryniak a hefty retirement package. He took it and ended up replacing Fairfull as CEO of EWI.
Pat Noone, senior partner and one of the managing directors at EWT in Dublin, heard about EWI around the same time Bryniak did. Within a week of seeing a video of EWI''s technology in action, he was on a plane to Toronto to meet with Fairfull. But it wasn't until Bryniak took over that Noone and EWT decided to buy a waste disposal unit. The company will now act as the UK distributor of EWI''s technology. "I''ll be a little bit biased obviously, because I wouldn''t be doing what I''m doing and I wouldn't have convinced the people in the UK to do what they''re doing if it didn''t work," says Noone.
EWT has invested almost £700,000 (about $1.4 million) to construct a new plant in Liverpool to house the MD-1000, which should begin processing medical waste later this month. Noone plans to order another unit by mid-December and a tire unit by March. "This has been one of the drawbacks along the line, that we didn''t have a commercial unit in Europe," he says. "People want to go somewhere where they can see it in a commercial situation. I think once this is commissioned, EWI will turn the corner."
In anticipation of the onslaught, Bryniak has signed a deal with State Group, a manufacturing company, to install the tire and waste disposal units in North America. (Bryniak''s still looking for a partner to handle outsourcing in Europe.) State Group could be busy pretty soon. In partnership with EWT of Ireland, EWI tendered a bid in late September to the government of Malta, a small island in the Mediterranean Sea, which is looking to get rid of its huge medical waste incinerator and replace it with a disposal method that will reduce trash by 75% to 80%"exactly what EWI offers. The deal, for four MD-1000s, is worth millions.
In October, the Japanese government invited Bryniak to tour the country, which incinerates 75% of its municipal waste. He spoke with 25 companies in two weeks and is submitting three proposals: one to treat plastics, one for drying sugar cane and one for small tire machines to be placed at gas stations and garages. "There was a tremendous response, and we feel Japan is going to be a huge market," says Bryniak.
And other potential customers are taking note. Several hospitals in New York state are considering the MD-1000. Ford Motor Co. is looking at EWI''s reverse polymerization process to get rid of "auto shredder" car parts like steering wheels. The US Department of Energy wants to use the technology to process low-level nuclear waste. And EWI is looking at adapting the technology to dispose of old computers, mattresses and even livestock inflicted with mad cow disease.
The company has also partnered with Science Applications International Corp., a high-tech research and engineering company based in San Diego, and Toronto-based Toddglen Construction to propose building an "environmental park" for the city of Peterborough, Ont. It would unite all the best technologies for recycling, composting and separation in one big green space. Eventually, Bryniak says, he plans to bring the proposal to Toronto mayor Mel Lastman, who recently came under fire for a scheme to ship the city''s garbage to an open-pit mine near Kirkland Lake, Ont. "We think this is the solution for Toronto," says Bryniak. "We just need the will to make it happen and some champions behind it. Something like this would put Toronto on the map."
First, though, Bryniak has to worry about getting his company on the map. He is convinced, though, that once a
few more customers are zapped by his technology, it will become as popular as, well, microwave ovens. "There are thousands of applications," he says, leaning back in his green leather chair. "It's like being in a huge candy store. We want to eat all the candy, but if we do, we'll get sick. So we'll eat it one piece at a time, and eventually we'll have eaten it all." Good thing Bryniak knows what to do with all the wrappers.

Barely a trace

Bob Bryniak has found a way to zap hazardous waste into tiny particles. Now all he needs is customers

By Dawn Calleja | Issue date: Dec. 11, 2000