ExxonMobil suspends US$118mn European recycling plants, cites restrictive EU rules

Against the back of companies announcing restructuring and plant closures in Europe, US materials firm ExxonMobil is stalling a planned US$118 million investment for two recycling facilities in Europe due to proposed EU regulations, according to a report by Reuters.

The two chemical recycling facilities would have been constructed at the company's existing sites in Rotterdam and Antwerp, to process a total of 80,000 tonnes/year of plastic waste.

Speaking to Reuters, the company’s senior vice-president, Jack Williams, said that while local support for the projects was strong, EU policy was the sole barrier preventing their advancement.

The draft EU legislation at the heart of the issue proposes a method for calculating recycled content that ExxonMobil believes discriminates against integrated facilities, like its own, in favour of stand-alone recycling plants. Under the draft law, the company's projects would receive less than half of the intended recycling credits.

This draft has already undergone a public consultation phase, with other industry stakeholders such as Finland's Neste echoing ExxonMobil's concerns, the report added.

The EU's ambitious recycling targets, including 30% recycled content in plastic bottles by 2030, have been cited by the industry as necessitating a combination of mechanical and chemical recycling techniques to process more complex plastics.

In addition to the recycling investment pause, Williams highlighted broader regulatory challenges within the EU.

He urged for the repeal of the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), criticising it as overly complex, bureaucratic and costly, with requirements that extend beyond the EU's borders and into companies' supply chains.

CSDDD “forces companies to commit to transition plans that aren’t achievable because the policies and the technologies quite frankly just aren’t available to transition to net zero scope 3 emissions for many industry sectors,” Williams was quoted as having said. “The only choice is to reduce or cease operations,” he added.

In September last year, US state of California initiated legal action against ExxonMobil over its alleged role in the global plastic pollution crisis through misleading campaigns about the effectiveness of recycling.

The lawsuit alleged that Exxon’s ‘advanced recycling’ programme was falsely marketed as a viable solution to plastic waste, despite the company’s apparent knowledge that it could only process a minimal fraction of the plastic waste it produces.

Also in the US, ExxonMobil recently launched its second advanced recycling unit in Baytown, Texas, effectively doubling the company's capacity to transform plastic waste into valuable raw materials. As of May 2025, the company reports having processed more than 100 million pounds of plastic waste at its Baytown facility. The first unit has been operational since 2022.

Looking ahead, ExxonMobil also announced plans to invest more than US$200 million to further expand its advanced recycling operations at its sites in Baytown and Beaumont, Texas. These new operations are expected to begin in 2026 and aim to increase advanced recycling rates. The company intends to construct additional units to achieve a global recycling capacity of 1 billion pounds/year by 2027.

ExxonMobil's advanced recycling technology, known as Exxtend, is currently serving customers in more than 15 countries across multiple sectors, including food-safe packaging and pet food, with demand continuing to increase, according to the company.

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