Advanced Plastic Purification International (APPI), a Belgian Dutch startup, has cancelled plans to build a pyrolysis plant in the port of Ostend, in the Flemish region of Belgium.
APPI set up a long-term concession plan spanning 15 hectares with the port of Ostend in May 2023. APPI had plans to build a 50,000 tonnes/year pyrolysis plant by 2026.
However, the port of Ostend has now announced those plans ‘will not move forward’, as the project proved financially unviable.
“The construction plans were in place, environmental permits were applied for, and everything was ready to begin,” port CEO Dirk Declerck told Belga news agency. “The project aimed to handle 500,000 tons of plastic waste a year via maritime transport and was set to create 110 jobs in Ostend. However, those plans will not move forward.”
Declerck said the business case of the chemical recycling project was undermined by cheap, virgin plastic imports from China.
“The market was flooded with these cheap materials. When recycled products become more expensive than virgin plastics, the business case collapses. That’s what happened here,” Declerck commented.
Plastics recyclers in Europe continue to struggle with low margins and competition with cheaper virgin plastics, both imported and locally produced.
As the plastics recycling industry moves into the fourth year of a low price environment, industry bodies continue to warn that crumbling EU competitiveness jeopardises the circular plastics transition. In the Netherlands alone, six plastics recyclers filed for bankruptcy in 2024.
The future of APPI is not clear. Its website domain appears to have been disconnected, and the company can no longer be found on social media channels.
APPI’s managing director was Boudewijn van Vliet, who was also executive director of chemical recycling company Pryme until December 2024, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Pryme announced plans to build a 40,000 tonnes/year pyrolysis plant in Rotterdam in 2021, with production scheduled to start in 2023. In July 2024, the company shipped its first batch of blended pyrolysis oil, totalling 36 tonnes. It produced a total of 120 tonnes of pyrolysis oil during the second quarter of 2024.
In May 2023, the project received almost €13 million in funding from an investment consortium consisting of Infinity Recycling, Invest-NL, and LyondellBasell.
In April 2024, it received a €5 million loan from Energietransitiefonds B.V. (ETF-Rotterdam), a fund managed by Innovation Quarter. In December, Innovation Quarter visited the Rotterdam plant and said it was currently scaling up to convert 26,000 tons of plastic waste into 17,000 tons of pyrolysis oil.