BP plc says the chemical recycling project in Naperville, Illinois, Wants focus on hard-to-recycle objects.
BP plc wants to build a $25m (€22.5m) pilot plant in Naperville, Illinois, To transform what it calls unrecyclable PET into "virgin-quality feedstocks."
The new chemical recycling facility, showcasing a technology called BP Infinia, has an end of diverting plastic waste from landfills and incineration.
Tufan Erginbilgic, chief executive of a BP, said: "We see Infinia technology as a game changer for the recycling of PET plastics unit called Downstream.
The technology "involves chemically converting complex PET plastic waste back to original monomer feedstocks through a depolymerisation process," the company reported.
The process aims to purify the monomer into recycled terephthalic acid and recycled monoethylene glycol "which said," BP said.
The technology looks to capture difficult-to-recycle PET, including black food trays and coloured bottles, for example, in a process that would allow repeated recycling.
The pilot plans to be located at the company's research and development hub in Naperville and open in late 2020.
"BP sees the potential to develop multiple full-scale commercial plants using this technology around the world," the company said. "If deployed at scale in a number of facilities, BP estimates that the technology has the potential to prevent PET bottles and trays from ending up in landfill or incineration every year."
Environmental group Greenpeace was unimpressed with the announcement.
Greenpeace Oceans Campaign Director, John Hocevar, said: "BP Infinia wants to do away with the plastic pollution said in a statement.