Plastic Energy and TotalEnergies have entered into a new agreement that will further promote the development of advanced plastic recycling, the companies have announced.
Under this agreement, Plastic Energy will build another advanced recycling plant in Sevilla - its third in Spain and second in Sevilla - designed to process and convert 33,000 tonnes annually of post-consumer end-of-life plastic waste into a recycled feedstock called Tacoil. Plastic Energy uses a proprietary and patented Thermal Anaerobic Conversion (TAC) technology to produce this chemical feedstock from end-of-life plastics otherwise destined for landfill or incineration into. For every tonne of end-of-life plastic waste processed, 850 litres of Tacoil are produced.
The Tacoil produced at the new plant in Sevilla is intended to be converted by TotalEnergies European-based production units into virgin-quality polymers, suitable for food-grade packaging following a successful processing experimentation in TotalEnergies’ petrochemical platform in Antwerp
It is by no means the first time Plastic Energy and TotalEnergies have joined forces on a plastics recycling project. In September 2020, the two companies announced the creation of a joint venture to build a plastics waste conversion facility with a capacity of 15,000 tonnes per year at the TotalEnergies Grandpuits zero-crude platform in France. That project is expected to be operational in 2023.
Moreover, Plastic Energy, Freepoint Eco-Systems and TotalEnergies announced a strategic partnership in October 2021 for a recycling plant in Texas, U.S.A similar to the present project. This plant, which is a joint venture between Plastic Energy and Freepoint Eco-systems, will have the capacity to recycle 33,000 tonnes of plastic waste per year, and is expected to be operational by mid-2024. Under the agreement, again, the Tacoil produced at the facility will be converted by TotalEnergies at its Texas-based production units.