LyondellBasell has announced plans to build an integrated plastic waste sorting facility in Knapsack, Germany. It has secured a location south of an existing industrial park and signed a land lease agreement with Yncoris GmbH.
The hub is expected to combine various sorting and recycling operations and will produce feedstock for LyondellBasell’s mechanical and chemical recycling projects in Geleen, the Netherlands, and Wesseling, Germany.
The project’s initial phase will see the construction of a sorting facility that will process mixed plastic waste that is currently not recycled and is mostly sent to incineration for energy recovery, according to LyondellBasell.
The integrated recycling hub will cover an area equivalent to 20 football fields. The project’s first phase, the sorting facility, is expected to start operations in the first quarter of 2026.
"The industrial park in Knapsack is the ideal location for our integrated hub as is it close to our world-scale facilities in Wesseling and will allow us to develop additional technologies for the recycling of plastic waste," said Yvonne van der Laan, LyondellBasell executive vice president, circular and low carbon solutions. "The integration of various technologies will allow us to build scale and offer our customers a wide range of products from recycled and renewable resources,” she added.
LyondellBasell’s chemical recycling plant at its Wesselling site is set to become the company’s first industrial-scale demonstration facility. The fully electrified plant was first announced in October 2022 and received a final investment decision in November 2023. This January, LyondellBasell secured €40 million in EU funds for the site.
The facility will use the LyondellBasell’s proprietary MoReTec technology which produces pyrolysis oil and pyrolysis gas. Unlike most pyrolysis processes, MoReTec technology enables the pyrolysis gas to be recovered rather than consumed as fuel, increasing the yield of the pyrolysis process and displacing fossil-based feedstocks, which lowers direct CO2 emissions.
In addition, LyondellBasell’s proprietary catalyst technology lowers the process temperature and reduces energy. With lower energy consumption, the process can operate completely on renewable electricity.