Green tie-ups: Nexus and Shell team up for chemicals from waste; Ineos Styrolution and Ferrero explore recycling for packaging

US recycling business Nexus Fuels and oil firm Shell have tied up for a supply agreement for 60,000 tonnes over four years of pyrolysis liquid made from plastic waste, which is then converted into chemical products. Nexus, a supplier of plastic waste molecular recycling, will supply fully circular, ISCC Plus-certified product from its plant in Atlanta, US.

This enhanced collaboration follows a year of continuous, high-quality supply to Shell’s chemical plant in Norco, Louisiana, US, where it has been used in the liquid cracker to make chemicals that are the raw materials for everyday items. The new agreement builds on that success and on a common desire to find solutions to plastic waste pollution and progressing a low-carbon future. It is a next step towards Shell’s ambition to use 1 million tonnes/year of plastic waste in its global chemical plants by 2025.

Jeff Gold, Nexus CEO, said “We appreciate Shell’s support of Nexus to convert waste plastics to virgin-molecule feedstocks and back into chemical products. Their teams have been great partners and share our philosophy and vision for improving our environment.”

Thomas Casparie, Executive Vice President of Shell’s global chemicals business, said “Real-world, in-plant testing and application is key to proving technologies and scaling up production of chemicals from plastic waste. This new supply agreement with Nexus is built on that solid foundation and is a positive step towards providing our customers with bigger volumes of sustainable, circular chemicals.”

Nexus, based in Atlanta, GA, is an end-to-end plastics recycling business – an operational, commercially scaled, continuous system. TheNexus Fuels plant in Atlanta is the first multi-polymer pyrolysis operation in the US to receive ISCC Plus certification.

In other news, styrenics supplier Ineos Styrolution has tied up with Ferrero Group, the maker of Nutella, Kinder, Tic Tac and Ferrero Rocher brands, to explore the feasibility of using its advanced recycling concepts such as depolymerisation for future packaging solutions. The aim of Ineos Styrolution is to develop a process to convert complex plastic waste back to fully recyclable materials that comply with food contact regulations.

The Ineos Styrolution recycling concept aims at contributing to a circular economy, based on the depolymerisation process that converts post-consumer complex plastic waste back to its monomers. The new material created through this process would also comply with food contact regulations.

Ferrero comments: “We are interested to see whether Ineos Styrolution’s approach can offer a circular solution and support the Ferrero commitment to make all its packaging 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.”

Sven Riechers, Vice President Business Management, Standard Business EMEA at Ineos Styrolution: “We are pleased to work with Ferrero and are convinced that chemical recycling can produce high-quality recycled plastics, while reducing post-consumer waste and reducing the use of valuable raw materials at the same time.”

(PRA)

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