“The Honeywell solution employs a modular approach to plant design, enabling a straightforward deployment and installation, while striking the right balance between economy of scale and amount of waste plastic generated locally, ” Avangard CEO Rick Perez said.
The project follows Honeywell’s recent announcement of its intent to form a joint venture with Spain-based Sacyr to build an advanced recycling plant in Andalucía, Spain.
Like the proposed facility in Spain, this second plant, which will be located at Avangard’s NaturaPCR complex in Waller, Texas, will also have the capacity to process 30,000 metric tons of mixed waste plastics into Honeywell Recycled Polymer Feedstock per year. Production is expected to begin in 2023.
“Partnering with companies that have recycling and waste management experience allows Honeywell to help close the loop within the plastics supply chain by bringing the recycling technology onsite to the collection source,” said Vimal Kapur, president and CEO of Honeywell Performance Materials and Technologies.
Asked about potential customers in the U.S. who will be buying the feedstock produced from the process, Honeywell said it couldn't talk about future partnerships at this time.
Honeywell utilizes its molecular conversion expertise and contaminants management technology to convert the waste plastic back to a recycled polymer feedstock with very low levels of contaminants.
When used in conjunction with other chemical and mechanical recycling processes, along with improvements to collection and sorting, studies suggest that Honeywell’s UpCycle Process Technology has the potential to increase the amount of plastic waste that can be recycled to 90 percent from only 15 percent today.
According to a life cycle analysis calculated by Honeywell, recycled plastics produced via UpCycle technology may result in a 57 percent reduction of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions compared with the production of the same amount of virgin plastic from fossil feeds. The process also reduces CO2e emissions by 77 percent compared with conventional modes of handling waste plastic, such as incineration and landfilling.
