BP (London / UK; www.bp.com) is planning to spend USD 25m (EUR 22.4m) on building a pilot plant in the US to test its PET recycling technology. The facility will be located at BP’s R&D hub in Naperville, Illinois, and is scheduled to go into operation in late 2020.

The UK-based group has developed its deploymerisation technology, called “BP Infinia”, to convert difficult-to-recycle PET waste into recycled feedstocks. The company said it sees potential to develop multiple full-scale commercial plants based on its Infinia technology worldwide, with the possibility of diverting billions of coloured PET bottles and food trays from landfills and incineration. According to BP, about 27m t/y of PET is used in these applications globally, with the majority – around 23m t/y, used in bottles.

While PET is one of the most widely recycled types of plastic, less than 60% of the PET used in bottles is collected for recycled and only 6% of the total makes it back into new bottles, BP said. The rest is either “downcycled” – where products are recycled and reused once before becoming waste – or end up in landfill or sent for incineration.