Plastic Energy today announced that the planned construction of an advanced recycling plant near Le Havre in northern France was definitely going forward. The company had already obtained all the requisite environmental permits for the project in July of 2021, ensuring the plant will be in compliance with all European environmental regulations - from construction to continuous operation.
Now, construction on the new, large scale chemical recycling facility will officially start at a site adjacent to ExxonMobil’s Notre Dame de Gravenchon petrochemical complex.
Earlier this year, Plastic Energy signed an offtake collaboration agreement with ExxonMobil. As per the agreement, Tacoil - the recycled oil product generated by Plastic Energy’s process - from the plant will be used by ExxonMobil to create virgin-quality certified circular polymers and other products.
“ExxonMobil is investing in projects around the world that help society address the challenge of plastic waste in the environment,” said Loic Vivier, senior vice president of Performance Derivatives, ExxonMobil Chemical Company. “With the addition of well-designed policies and collaboration across industries, the advanced recycling opportunities we are evaluating and executing have the potential for large-scale, game-changing improvements to the circularity of plastic products.”
The plant, which is targeted to go into operation in 2023, will have a capacity of 25kT/pa with plans to scale up to 33 kT/pa in the near future.
Tacoil is produced through the patented Thermal Anaerobic Conversion process developed over the past 10 years by Plastic Energy. The process makes it possible to divert formerly unrecyclable plastics from being landfilled or incinerated and to recycle these into a feedstock that can be used in petrochemical plants to make ethylene and propylene.
The process heats plastic waste in the absence of oxygen until it melts and the polymer molecules break down into hydrocarbon vapour. The condensable gases are converted to hydrocarbon products while the non-condensable gases are collected separately and combusted to process energy. For every tonne of end-of-life plastic waste processed, 850 litres of chemical feedstock Tacoil are produced.
Plastic Energy currently has two chemical recycling plants that are in constant operation in Spain and is now ‘excited to announce that construction is going ahead’ on the large-scale advanced recycling plant in France, said Carlos Monreal, Founder and CEO of Plastic Energy. “Through our collaboration with ExxonMobil, we are working towards making plastics more sustainable for the future.”
This project has received financial support from the French government as part of their Plan de Relance and Regional Planning Grant Scheme.