A collaboration has been announced between Clariter, BioBTX, Bollegraaf, and N+P that will see the development and construction of Europe's largest and most advanced plastic waste sorting plant for the chemical recycling industry in Delfzijl, the Netherlands.
The new facility will have an annual processing capacity of 350,000 tonnes - a volume, say the partners, equivalent to the amount of plastic packaging thrown away each year by more than 11 million Dutch citizens. The unit will mainly sort and process very low-grade plastic waste that would otherwise be sent to be incinerated or landfilled. The output of the plant will serve as feedstock for the chemical recycling operations of clean tech company Clariter and BioBTX, which produces BTX from biomass and plastics. The project is expected to come online by 2025.
The new Raw Material Preparation centre (RPMC), as the sorting facility is known, will initially be processing waste from the countries around the Netherlands, as the Dutch organisation for extended producer responsibility currently does not allow access to its waste streams by chemical recyclers.
“We hope the Dutch EPR organization will soon provide access to its waste streams for chemical recycling. This way, we could improve Dutch recycling rates and avoid unnecessary waste shipments,” said Jasper Munier, business development manager at Clariter.
The RMPC will boost recycling rates in Europe and reduce CO2 emissions by helping the industry to replace the use of fossil-based petrochemicals with plastic waste-based alternatives.
The project partners each have a specific role in the project: Clariter and BioBTX will be the offtakers of the raw material; N+P is responsible for the supply of plastic waste; the technology will be delivered by sorting and recycling expert Bollegraaf.
The RMPC will be in the Groningen Seaports area, an area that is rapidly growing into one of Europe’s most efficient circular hubs.