US green plants: ExxonMobil starts operations at advanced recycling facility; Mitsui considering bioPET plant

US materials firm ExxonMobil says it has started up of one of the largest advanced recycling facilities in North America. The facility at the company’s integrated manufacturing complex in Baytown, Texas, uses proprietary technology to break down hard-to-recycle plastics and transform them into raw materials for new products. It is capable of processing more than 36,000 tonnes/year of plastic waste, supporting a circular economy for post-use plastics.

It is also planning additional global capacity to recycle 450,000 tonnes/year of used plastics by year-end 2026.

“We’ve proven our proprietary advanced recycling technology at Baytown, and now we’re leveraging our scale and integration to increase production of certified circular plastics to meet growing demand,” said Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil Product Solutions Company. “There is substantial demand for recycled plastics, and advanced recycling can play an important role by breaking down plastics that could not be recycled in traditional, mechanical methods. We are collaborating with government, industry and communities to scale up the collection and sorting of plastic waste that will improve recycling rates and help our customers around the world meet their sustainability goals.”

Since the start of pilot operations at Baytown last year, ExxonMobil has recycled nearly 68,000 tonnes of plastic waste. The proprietary Exxtend technology enables the breakdown of plastic waste that would previously be destined for landfills – from synthetic athletic fields to bubble wrap and motor oil bottles.

The company helped form Cyclyx International, a joint venture created to collect and sort large volumes of plastic waste and is investing in a first-of-its-kind plastic waste processing facility in Houston to help supply ExxonMobil’s Baytown advanced recycling facility.

To accelerate advanced recycling, ExxonMobil is a founding member of the Houston Recycling Collaboration, which brings government and industry together to increase access to recycling programs and expand infrastructure for mechanical and advanced recycling technologies.

ExxonMobil plans to build advanced recycling facilities at many of its other manufacturing sites around the world, which would give it the capacity to process up to 450,000 tonnes of plastic waste annually by year-end 2026. The company is assessing facilities in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Beaumont, Texas; and Joliet, Illinois; as well as at sites in Belgium, the Netherlands, Singapore and Canada.

ExxonMobil is also collaborating with third parties to assess the potential for large-scale implementation of advanced recycling technologies and opportunities to support improvements to plastic waste collection and sorting in Malaysia and Indonesia.

ExxonMobil has commercial contracts to sell certified circular plastics to customers around the world for use in food-safe plastic packaging, including collaborations with Sealed Air and Ahold Delhaize USA, Berry Global, and Amcor.

In other news, Japan’s Mitsui & Co. says it will decide next year whether to build a bioplastics factory in the southeastern US, creating one of the largest production sites worldwide for the plant-based packaging material.

The proposed bio-PET plastics factory, with a capacity of 400,000 tonnes/year, could open in 2025. Investment is estimated at US$550 million. Mitsui has signed a memorandum of understanding with US-based chemical company Petron Scientech to explore a joint venture.

Bio-PET, short for bio-based polyethylene terephthalate, is a plant-derived version of the plastic produced from fossil fuels and commonly used in drink bottles. Carbon dioxide emissions from the factory's bio-PET plastic are expected to be 70% to 80% lower than from petroleum-derived plastic.

The Mitsui factory would procure bioethanol made from plants such as American corn and Brazilian sugar cane to produce the bio-PET plastic. Recycled bottles would be mixed into the plastic, which then would be sold to beverage makers as a container material.

Global bio-PET plastic production capacity now totals around 1 million tonnes, Mitsui said, a figure that would soar if the plant is built.

Beverage makers worldwide have set goals to reduce their environmental impact, such as by increasing the use of recycled materials in packaging, but that requires an infrastructure for collecting containers. Bio-PET can complement recycling.

Subscribe to Get the Latest Updates from IMA  Please click here