Carbios and De Smet Engineers & Contractors enter engineering partnership for construction of world’s first PET biorecycling plant
Carbios, a biotech company developing and industrializing biological solutions to reinvent the life cycle of plastic and textiles, and De Smet Engineers & Contractors, a provider of engineering, procurement and construction services in the biotech’s and agro-processing industries, jointly announce their collaboration to spearhead the construction of the world’s first PET biorecycling plant. Under the agreement, De Smet has been entrusted with the project management and detailed engineering, including procurement assistance and Carbios partners’ management, to ensure the execution of the plant’s construction in Longlaville, France, due for commissioning in 2025. Carbios’ first commercial facility will play a key role in the fight against plastic pollution by offering an industrial-scale solution for the enzymatic depolymerization of PET waste to accelerate a circular economy for plastic and textiles.
With over 70 members of De Smet’s expert team dedicated to the project and working alongside Carbios teams, the collaboration aims to guarantee the project timeline and budget while upholding stringent quality, safety, health, and environmental standards. Construction is currently underway and on schedule.
Carbios’ technology enables PET circularity and provides an alternative raw material to petro-sourced monomers, allowing PET producers, waste management companies, public entities, and brands to have an efficient solution to meet regulatory requirements and fulfill their own sustainability commitments. The plant will have a processing capacity of 50,000 tons of post-consumer PET waste per year (equivalent to 2 billion colored PET bottles, 2.5 billion PET trays, or 300 million T-shirts) and will address waste with little or no value to date such as colored PET bottles, food trays, and textiles. The plant will create 150 direct and indirect jobs in the region. In October 2023, Carbios obtained the building and site operating permits. The plant is currently under construction in Longlaville in the Grand-Est Region on land officially acquired from Indorama Ventures on February 14, 2024.
