Five companies have created a Europe-based alliance for turning chemically recycled plastics from post-consumer packaging into a feedstock for virgin-quality resin.

The German consultancy and project leader Source One (Dalldorf; https://s-one.de/en/home) is said to have facilitated the formation of the collaboration, which includes compatriot waste management firms Landbell (Mainz; www.landbell.de) and A. Siemer-Entsorgungs (Vechta; https://siemer-vechta.de), UK chemical recycling firm Plastic Energy (London; www.plasticenergy.com), and Saudi chemicals and plastics giant Sabic (Riyadh; www.sabic.com). 

Related: Plastics Energy joins French project to reclaim plastics film 

Under the partnership, Landbell, which operates take-back and collection systems for various waste streams, said it will supply sorted post-consumer packaging to Siemer’s new sorting and processing plant in Vechta. The facility has been overhauled and redesigned to recover materials from previously non-recyclable post-consumer waste classified as low-grade using combined technologies that can separate dirt, foreign matter, and impurities from the plastics waste. 

According to Landbell, Siemer will reprocess the already sorted portion of post-consumer packaging further at its 25,000 t/y facility and deliver the material to a 50/50 joint venture site for making Tacoil run by Sabic and Plastics Energy in Geleen, the Netherlands. The facility started operations in the second half of last year.

The plan has Sabic processing the Tacoil at a newly built hydrotreater plant into a feedstock for its Trucircle brand polycarbonates based on renewable feedstocks. Sabic produces the resin at a Dutch facility in Bergen Op Zoom.