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The Richmond region will become the national showcase for an innovative technology that an Israeli company says will transform household waste — everything, including kitchen scraps — into “the greenest thermoplastic material on the planet.”

But the initial foray by UBQ Materials into the U.S. market has much higher stakes for Virginia than the 2,000 recycled recycling bins that the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority will distribute to households in the region for the usual bottles, cans and wastepaper collected at curbside.

The company, based in Tel Aviv, is looking in Virginia and other states for a potential site to build its first U.S. production plant that will turn garbage into a composite material that plastic manufacturers can use, instead of petroleum-based products, for a wide range of applications.

“Virginia has been such a good friend to me personally and the company I work with. I would like to make every effort to have the new company in Virginia,” Yehuda Pearl, co-founder and honorary chairman of UBQ, said at a Wednesday announcement at the Capitol.

Pearl is familiar to the Richmond area as the founder of Sabra Dipping Co., a New York company that opened a hummus factory in Chesterfield County in 2010 and completed its latest expansion early this year.