Shorts Cooperation on chemical recycling of plastic waste BASF (Ludwigshafen, Germany), Quantafuel (Oslo, Norway), and REMONDIS (Lünen, Germany) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly evaluate a cooperation in chemical recycling including a joint investment into a pyrolysis plant for plastic waste. It is intended that Remondis, one of the world’s leading waste and water management companies, supplies suitable plastic waste to the plant and BASF uses the resulting pyrolysis oil as feedstock in its production Verbund as part of its ChemCycling TM project. Quantafuel intends to provide the technology and operate the plant. The company is a specialist for the pyrolysis of mixed plastic waste and the purification of the resulting pyrolysis oil; the technology is jointly developed and being held with BASF. The location of the pyrolysis plant will be evaluated together. Each year, almost 20 million tonnes of plastic waste in Europe go unrecycled. By establishing chemical recycling as a complementary solution to mechanical recycling it is possible to bring back more plastic waste into the materials cycle, which would otherwise be incinerated. The pyrolysis technology can be used to process plastic waste streams that are not recycled mechanically, e.g. for technological or economic reasons. To maximize a circular economy for plastics, the parties will identify which of the waste plastics provided by Remondis could undergo chemical recycling in the future. “BASF has set itself the goal to process 250,000 tonnes of recycled feedstock annually from 2025 onwards. In this regard, it is important to use feedstock derived from plastic waste that would otherwise not have undergone recycling”, said Lars Kissau, Senior Vice President Global Strategic Business Development at BASF’s Petrochemicals division. Legislation on EU and national level will create the framework for chemical recycling and therefore shape the ability how it can contribute to a more circular economy for plastics. This includes acknowledging that products based on chemically recycled feedstock are counted towards achieving recycled content targets. Pyrolysis oil derived from plastic waste is fed into BASF’s Verbund production, thereby saving the same amount of fossil resources. Since the pyrolysis oil is inserted directly at the beginning of the chemical value chain, the final sales products have the exact same properties as products made from fossil feedstock. The share of recycled material is allocated to the end products according to a third-party certified mass balance approach which allows BASF to offer its customers certified products carrying the name affix Ccycled TM . MT www.basf.com WWF released new position: Chemical Recycling Implementation Principles On January 26, as part of the No Plastic in Nature vision, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Gland, Switzerland, released "Chemical Recycling Implementation Principles" (see link below). These principles aim to help decision-makers determine if and how chemical recycling – an emerging technology with unknown environmental and social outcomes – should be pursued as a plastic waste mitigation tactic. Alix Grabowski, director of plastic and material science at WWF said: “Even as technologies advance, we can’t recycle our way out of the growing plastic waste crisis. Instead of just focusing on recycling, we should prioritize strategies like reducing our overall single-use plastic consumption and scaling up reuse, which offer the best opportunity to achieve the widescale change we need. “For a technology like chemical recycling to be part of a sustainable material management system, we must carefully look at how it is designed and implemented and whether or not it offers environmental benefits over the status quo, adheres to strong social safeguards, and truly contributes to advancing our circular economy. These principles are designed to do exactly that”. The paper lays out considerations for plastic-to-plastic recycling, not plastic-to-fuel applications. Plastic-to-fuel activities should not be considered recycling, nor a part of the circular economy. The paper also states that, "based on currently available evidence, there are significant concerns that these technologies are energy-intensive, pose risks to human health, and/or will not be able to practically recycle plastic beyond what mechanical recycling already achieves". Info: 1: The Chemical Recycling Implementation Principles can be downloaded form https://tinyurl.com/WWF-Principles bioplastics MAGAZINE strongly encourages its readers, especially those involved in chemical recycling, to read and comment on the WWF paper. MT tinyurl.com/WWF-Principles 8 bioplastics MAGAZINE [06/22] Vol. 17
Chemically recycled PLA now available Shorts Total Corbion PLA (Gorinchem, the Netherlands) has launched the world’s first commercially available chemically recycled bioplastics product. The Luminy ® recycled PLA grades boast the same properties, characteristics and regulatory approvals as virgin Luminy PLA, but are partially made from post-industrial and post-consumer PLA waste. Total Corbion PLA is already receiving and depolymerizing reprocessed PLA waste, which is then purified and polymerized back into commercially available Luminy rPLA. The commercial availability of recycled PLA (rPLA) offers brand owners the opportunity to make products from rPLA, with the luxury of having original food contact and other certifications in place. Using rPLA can contribute to meeting the recycled content targets of brand owners. Thomas Philipon, CEO at Total Corbion PLA, sees this as a logical step towards an even more sustainable offering: “Our company’s vision is to create a better world for today and generations to come. This ability to now efficiently receive, repurpose and resupply PLA is a further demonstration of the sustainability of our product and the demonstration of our commitment to enable the circular economy through value chain partnership”. François de Bie, Senior Marketing Director at Total Corbion PLA is proud to launch this new product line of Luminy PLA and encourages interested parties to get in touch: “The ability to chemically recycle post-industrial and post-consumer PLA waste allows us to not only reduce waste but also keep valuable resources in use and truly ‘close the loop’. For our customers, the new, additional end-of-life avenue this provides could be the missing piece in their own sustainability puzzle, and we look forward to solving these challenges together”. As an initial offering, grades will be supplied with 20 % recycled content using the widely accepted principles of mass balance. “As we are currently ramping up this initiative, the initial volumes are limited but we are confident that rPLA will grow to be a significant part of our overall sales revenues”, states de Bie. Currently, Looplife in Belgium and Sansu in Korea are among the first active partners that support collecting, sorting and cleaning of post-industrial and postconsumer PLA waste. The resulting PLA feedstock is then used by Total Corbion PLA to make new Luminy PLA polymers via the chemical recycling process. Total Corbion PLA is actively looking for additional partners from around the world that will help to close the loop. We invite interested parties to contact their local sales representative. Total Corbion PLA expects that the growing demand for rPLA will also boost the collecting, sorting and reprocessing of post-use PLA for both mechanical and chemical recycling, as de Bie explains further: “At Total Corbion PLA, we are actively seeking to purchase more post-industrial and post-consumer PLA waste, creating value for the recycle industry as a whole”. MT www.totalenergies-corbion.com How plastic bottles end up in tyres Tyres can’t last forever. However, the life cycle of the materials used in one tyre can be much longer than that of the tyre itself. Continental just got one step closer to the goal of tyres made from 100 % recycled or sustainable materials. “We are at the vanguard of a more eco-friendly automotive industry and are already committed to using new technologies that utilize recycled materials. From 2022, we will be able to use reprocessed polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in the construction of Continental tyre carcasses, completely replacing the use of conventional virgin PET“, as a press release stated. To reuse recycled PET bottles in tyres, Continental teamed up with OTIZ, a fibre specialist and textile manufacturer, to develop a specialized technology that produces high-quality polyester yarn from recycled PET without the chemical steps previously required in the recycling process. Polyester may not be the first material you think of when you see a car tyre, PET yarn is actually an essential ingredient that makes up the tyre carcass in the form of textile cords that run from bead to bead (the inner circle of the tyre). The horseshoeshaped layer sits just above the inner liner, affecting tyre durability, load carriage, and comfort. It’s the backbone of the tyre, sustains loads, and absorbs shock. It maintains its shape even at very high temperatures, so thermal stability is crucial. MT Picture: Continental www.continental-tires.com bioplastics MAGAZINE [06/22] Vol. 17 9
