Advanced plastics recycling works to scale up

Eric Appelman, who has worked in chemistry for 40 years, is also eyeing those numbers.

Now the chief revenue officer for London, Ontario-based Aduro Clean Technologies, Appelman said economics alone underlie the urgency to boost recycling numbers. In his native Netherlands, there’s simply not enough room to landfill everything — and no natural resources to replace the plastics that are trashed.  

Scaling up is critical to making recycling profitable. 

“I think in Europe, very significantly, the authorities have realized that mechanical recycling on its own cannot do the job. It is just addressing too small a fraction to be totally meaningful. And, as a matter of fact, if you only address that small fraction, you are not going to generate revenue to pay the bill for collecting the whole fraction,” he said. 

But, he and Faulkner stressed, time is an important part of the equation.  

Mechanical recycling has enjoyed a head start. And the chemicals industry that makes plastics has even longer roots.  

That has left the nascent advanced recycling industry in a hurry to catch up, at a time when the plastic waste problem is commanding attention. 

“There's a scale imbalance in the waste industry vs. the chemical industry,” Faulkner said. “We have become very proficient over the past 150 years at producing chemicals. The facilities are massive and waste is very distributive. You make those polymers in a concentrated area, then we disperse them globally. And now we're aiming to do the opposite.” 

Compared to the chemicals industry, there is a long way to go. Faulkner said he expects chemical recycling to represent just 2-10 percent of the scale of traditional virgin resin manufacturing, but, he said, “that's not unexpected for new industry technology.” 

But the speed of the chemicals industry’s evolution also could be a template for people looking to advance recycling. 

"Whereas you might look at crude oil as a big, black, dirty mix; it is actually, after 100 years of learning, a pretty transparent and manageable feedstock. We have only started with just scratching the surface,” Appelman said. 

State of investment in advanced recycling 

Ramp-up of advanced recycling technologies has taken an uneven path, and recycling experts provided mixed assessments of the current state of expansion and investment within the industry. 

PLASTICS’ Brewer described a “steady rise in capital investment aimed at expanding facility capacity and increasing material output” and said: “Advanced recycling is expanding rapidly, with new facility capacity being added each year to improve overall recycling rates. Investments continue to accelerate, driving the development of innovative technologies and scaling operations.” 

Citing data from ICIS, a market pricing and analysis firm for the chemical and oil industries, and PureCycle, which uses a purification, or dissolution, process — rather than a chemical reaction — to transform waste plastic, Scott Trenor, technical director for the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR), quantified input volumes of various recycling methods this way: 

• Gasification — 40,000 tons; 

• Pyrolysis—90,000 tons;  

• Depolymerization — 160,000 tons (all Eastman) 

• Dissolution — 49,000 tons 

Overall, mechanical recycling produces an output of 2.5 million tons of material. 

“So, if the chemical recyclers were 100 percent efficient, at best they'd be at 10 percent of recycled plastics,” he said.  

Currently, though, citing a third source, Trenor said, “Plastics Europe has chemical recycled plastics at approximately 1 percent of all recycled plastics on the market.” 

According to an article on the topic that was recently submitted to Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing by ICIS, most projects are in early stages, with limited capacity. 

Some companies are spinning their wheels with pilot projects, according to Trenor.  

“Even as investors remain cautious, given the interest that is swirling around these spaces, the startup and expansion landscape begins to heat up,” wrote ICIS article authors Andrea Bassetti, Americas team lead, plastics recycling; Corbin Olson, senior analyst, plastics recycling; and Joshua Dill, analyst, plastics recycling. 

Petrochemical companies, startups make headway 

Some companies are moving ahead with advanced recycling projects.  

Among the biggest players in the segment are petrochemical companies that are also involved in manufacturing virgin resins. But they’re not alone — other, smaller companies, such as Revalyu and GreenMantra, also are elbowing for position.  

Petrochemical companies have an advantage of scale, Trenor explained.  

“Petrochems are orders of magnitude larger than most mechanical recyclers and can support large investments, although they may not actually. In terms of collaborations, there are examples of chemical recyclers sending their waste streams to chemical recyclers. Some petrochems like LyondellBassell [LYB] and Dow are scaling both simultaneously. LYB has mechanical, physical (dissolution) and pyrolysis capabilities and must split feedstocks to feed all three. Similarly, Dow has mechanical recycling assets, [is] working to scale dissolution of PE as well as joint projects with Mura on hydrothermal chemical recycling.” 

In June, ExxonMobil Chemical Co. announced it’s doubled its capacity at its plant in Baytown, Texas, where, as of the previous month, it had processed more than 50,000 tons of plastic waste, with a recovery rate of nearly 90 percent. It’s planning to add two additional units at the facility, along with a unit in Beaumont, Texas, and it is eyeing other sites, as well.  

It’s looking to eventually have a capacity of around 250,000 tons of plastic waste a year.  

“By embedding these units within our pre-existing facilities, we can scale up faster and at a much lower cost than most of industry, and we can help increase recycling rates in nearby cities and towns,” it said. 

One nonpetrochemical producer looking to seize on business opportunities is Revalyu, which expected to open an glycolysis plant for PET this fall in Statesboro, Ga. In an 2023 announcement of the project, it stated it was investing more than $200 million and targeting an annual capacity of 100,000 tons.

It touted a process it’s already implemented in India to produce recycled PET [rPET], and said in statement, “Compared to conventional PET, revalyu’s rPET is produced using 75% less water, 91% less energy, and saves around 0.7 barrels of oil and 0.2 cubic meters of landfill space per 2000 pounds of PET recycled.” 

GreenMantra also is celebrating expansion, after last month receiving its third loan in the last decade from Closed Loop Partners, an investment firm that provides funding for circular economy solutions. The $10 million will help it expand its facility and increase its material processing. 

Scott said the loan comes after the Canadian government announced earlier this year it was making a $3.8 million investment. 

According to a Closed Loop Partners press release, GreenMantra expects to increase its output of its recycled products — which include specialty waxes that can be used in the building and road construction industries — by approximately 50 percent. 

“This financing marks a significant acceleration in our work to scale solutions that help ensure hard-to-recycle materials do more for our planet,” GreenMantra CEO Domenic Di Mondo said.   

Meanwhile, according to Appelman, Aduro is building a second pilot plant, bringing its recycling capacity to several hundred tons of plastics a year. 

Every year, Agilyx handles about 20 million tons of mixed feedstock made up of PS and styrene-related products.

Roadblocks to implementation 

Not all projects are making as much progress. 

One source of trouble is the federal government, which has undertaken dramatic cuts since the start of President Trump’s second term. 

“Federal grants have been a driver in helping advanced recycling technologies move into commercial-scale operations. When that funding is withdrawn, it slows the time to commercialization,” PLASTICS’ Brewer said. 

In comments posted on LinkedIn, Mitch Hecht, the founder and chairman of the now-defunct International Recycling Group, explained his company's end, after last year it landed a $182 million contract from the U.S. Department of Energy to build in Erie, Pa., what he had envisioned as “the world’s largest plastics recycling plant to process all types and grades of plastic scrap.” 

“Unfortunately, following the inauguration of a new Administration, that loan commitment was placed on hold by Presidential Executive Order as part of a broader pause and review of federal loan guarantees and clean energy financing programs. This abrupt change in federal policy had a severe and immediate impact on our ability to move forward,” he wrote.  

Trenor pointed out that once materials are picked up, another consideration is sorting and distributing them to the recyclers that use the process that would prove most beneficial.

Some materials, such as flexible PP, contaminated medical packaging and electronics waste, could be earmarked for chemical recycling, Trenor said. 

In the case of multi-material packaging, though, he said specifications and tolerances could vary based on the recycling stream and particular process. 

“What I believe is absolutely essential is that you optimize the whole thing, that you also do not limit yourself to one recycling technology, because if you can mechanically cycle, it is always the best from an energetic perspective,” Appelman said. 

Even the design of a product should be re-assessed in considering its end-of-life, according to Appelman, who expressed concern about the use of a handful of “show-stopping chemicals” and materials — like PFAS and PVC — that present risks to the environment and obstacles to recycling.  

But even with the challenges ahead, in his decades-long career, he said he’s rarely seen any project move so fast.

"There's still work to be done, and there is scale advantages and all that sort of thing. I'm convinced that we can get there, but it takes time, and we shall not rest on our laurels."