PETplanet Insider Vol. 22 No. 11/21 www.petpla.net 41 EVENT REVIEW 2021 PET Chemical Recycling: Depolymerization Forum In 2019, Petcore Europe launched the PET Monomer Recycling Special Industry Group - with initial engagement by companies involved in the development of new and innovative processes to recycle PET and polyester waste by depolymerisation and reusing its monomer constituents. Due to the growing interest in PET Monomer Recycling, Petcore Europe organised the Webinar “2021 PET Chemical Recycling: Depolymerization Forum” on the 6th of October 2021. Stephen Short, President of Petcore Europe opened the event with the triad that there is a lot of innovation, a lot of learning and as a result a lot of activity that this event would like to report on. Appropriately, there were 17 speakers whose short presentations were mainly about pilot projects, but also about regulations and almost market-ready plants. Kristin Geidenmark Olofsson, convenor for ISO TC 61 Plastics, SC 14 Environmental aspects and the Working Group 5 for mechanical and chemical recycling, pointed to the lack of a consensual agreement on a Mass balance model. She continued that a definition of recycled content, a verification scheme and environmental footprint methodology are still missing. She stated that the current available technologies within chemical recycling puts all methods in one calculation category, independent of rate of actual recycled content and that this open boundary approach risks the credibility of the plastics industry. Perspective of PET producer From the perspective of PET producers, Antonello Ciotti CPME Chairman, spoke about “PET on the Forefront of Ecological Transition.” He focused on the problem of green washing. He told that CPME works with the value chain to ensure that regulation is in place to set a fair competitive ground for the European PET industry. Antonello called for public confidence in vPET to be maintained in rPET and for chemical recycling (R monomers) to be a must in order to maintain the PET business in Europe. He summarised his demands in three points: The EU+1 must establish a control system to certify that imported PET has validated rPET content; unfair competition due to potential untruths (green washing) should be sanctioned and consumer safety must be maintained, and innovation should not be unintentionally blocked. Projects Martin Stephan, CEO Cabios, presented Carbios resarch on enzymes to fully break-down plastics. The enzyme allows an infinite recycling of all types of PET waste as well as the production of 100% recycled and 100% recyclable PET products, without loss of quality. Market validation was reached in June 2021 when the 4 brandowners partners, L’Oréal, Nestlé, PepsiCo and Suntory Beverage and Food Europe have presented their packaging manufactured in industrial conditions, made with product coming from Carbios technology with food-contact approval. The start-up of the demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand was at the end of September 2021. Licences are expected to be issued by the end of 2022. A successful capital increase of € 114 million was reached in May 2021. A start-up of a first-of-a-kind industrial unit (the reference plant) is planned for 2025. Legislation Mike Neal, Chairman of CPME, gave an update on the Chemical Recycling Legislative. He analysed that to be accepted from a regulatory point of view, chemical recycling must demonstrate that the myriad processes can produce products that align with the current plastics regulation. The monomers must be of suitable technical quality and purity; they shall not contain genotoxic materials and finally must be listed in the plastics regulation. The current work programme includes that monomers, and polymers produced from them, are being prepared and analysed. Analysis methods for monomer purity (NIAS) are being developed and polymer and flake (FI process) are being analysed for Nias reduction. The regulation status for monomer recycling is open for discussion; several aspects need to be considered for example Efsa will be asked to develop evaluation criteria, the industry view on PET chemical recycling that PET chemical recycling should remain outside of the scope of FC recycle regulation. For more infomation please visit Petcore Europe: www.petcore-europe.org by Heike Fischer
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