At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, during a reception hosted by Sabic Vice Chairman and CEO Yousef bin Abdullah Al-Benyan, the company underlined its sustainability ambition with the announcement of its far-reaching plans to work with a network of partners to close the loop on plastics waste in 2020.
To that end, the company has developed a portfolio of materials, marketed under the brand name Trucircle.
Closed-loop recycling of plastic will see post-consumer plastic waste collected, recycled and used to make new products. It requires a total transformation of the value chain, which Sabic has been working hard with its downstream and upstream partners to achieve.
Sabic’s Trucircle portfolio comprises solutions spanning design for recyclability, mechanically recycled products, certified circular products from feedstock recycling of plastic waste streams and certified renewable products from bio-based feedstock. These solutions have been made possible, said the company by a collaboration with UK-based Plastic Energy Ltd. which enables the recycling of plastic waste which has historically been classified as non-recyclable.
Over the past 12 months, customers of the company and brand owners such as Unilever and Tupperware Brands have brought to market a number of consumer products based on Sabic’s new Trucircle solutions.
“2020 will see us forge bold, new collaborations with high caliber partners in order to create a circular, transparent and sustainable economy for plastics, and we invite players from across the value chain to join us to truly transform our world,” said Mark Vester, Circular Economy Leader at Sabic.
Sabic also had an update on its new semi-commercial plant for the production of pyrolysis oil from plastic waste in Geleen, which is expected to open in 2012. Here, circular polymers will be produced from a feedstock known as Tacoil — a patented product from UK-based Plastic Energy Ltd. — from the recycling of low quality, mixed plastic waste otherwise destined for incineration or landfill.
Denmark's Haldor Topsøe will provide license and basic engineering for a novel hydrotreating solution, and Renewi, a leading waste to product company, will build a dedicated formulation line that will supply feedstock from mixed plastic waste for the pyrolysis process.
The initial output from the site is earmarked for Sabic’s downstream partners. Longer term, the aim is to scale up production to ensure these certified circular polymers become available to all global customers.
Sabic’s commitment to using more plastic waste as feedstock for its circular polymers runs parallel to its 2020 ambition to increase the uptake of recycled plastic from mechanical recycling. Sabic is determined to increase the amount of plastic it processes in Europe to 200.000 metric tons by 2025, in line with its pledge to the EU Commission.