French energy company Total SA has completed an industrial scale test run incorporating about 20% of post-consumer recycled polystyrene within virgin polystyrene.
The company announced on 19 June that the trail, which followed a series of pilot plant trials, was carried out on an existing production asset and led to product “with properties equivalent to virgin polymer.”
“Polystyrene is one of the easiest polymers to recycle,” explained Jean Viallefont, Total vice president Polymer Europe.
“Our success highlights that polystyrene, which naturally provides outstanding performance for various applications, will be a significant contributor to the circular economy,” he added.
The French company also said that following the successful test run, it is now launching new measures to manage contamination of recycled streams.
This, it added, is to create “a robust process in order to handle complex polystyrene waste streams that can be implemented on our different existing production lines.”