US consumer goods leviathan Procter & Gamble (P&G, Cincinnati, Ohio; www.us.pg.com) has announced that it will use “Renew” brand recyclate made by compatriot polyester specialist Eastman (Kingsport, Tennessee; www.eastman.com). In a statement, the companies said they will also collaborate on initiatives to reduce reliance on virgin plastics and enable a circular economy.

An Eastman spokesperson told Plasteurope.com that P&G would incorporate Renew polyester materials in packaging and product solutions. Eastman says its molecular recycling technologies uses plastics waste that would otherwise end up in landfills to produce its reclaim material.

Lee Ellen Drechsler, the consumer goods maker’s senior vice-president of R&D, said, “P&G is taking a thoughtful approach to addressing the collection, processing, revitalisation, and reuse of materials. That’s why we selected Eastman’s molecular recycling technologies which enable former waste to be transformed into useful products.”

Eastman said it is building one of the world’s largest plastics-to-plastics recycling facilities at its US site in Kingsport, Tennessee. Completion is expected in 2022, and the company said the facility will process around 91,000 t/y of polymer waste.

P&G has licensed its own recycling technology to US-based PureCycle Technologies (Orlando, Florida; www.purecycle.com), which recently announced plans to erect a polypropylene recycling facility in the US state of Georgia (see Plasteurope.com of 06.08.2021).