A 260,000 tonnes per year sorting plant to produce feedstock for plastic chemical recycling plant is set to be built in Germany by OMV and Interzero.
Energy, fuels and chemicals company OMV will invest €170 million (£148 million) into the project and will own 89.9% of the facility, while circular economy firm Interzero will develop the plant and have 10.1% ownership of it.
It will be built in Walldürn, southern Germany, with production expected to begin in 2026.
The plant will take mixed plastics that could not previously be recycled and sort them before they are sent to OMV’s chemical recycling plant to turn them into a pyrolysis oil that can be used as a feedstock for new plastics.
OMV chief executive Alfred Stern said: “Technology and innovation are at the heart of progress. This is why we are investing and forming partnerships to develop innovative technologies and scale them up to an industrial level.
“Our stated strategic goal is to become a leading provider of solutions for sustainable fuels, chemicals and materials, as well as to play a key role in the circular economy.
“This joint project with Interzero will provide feedstock for our ReOil technology, which in turn will transform it into high-quality sustainable raw materials for plastics production. In this way, we are making a significant contribution to the creation of a circular economy for plastics.”
Interzero operates five sorting plants for lightweight packaging in Germany and sorts about a third of Germany’s lightweight packaging waste in the form of over 800,000 metric tonnes per year. This means that the company has the largest sorting capacity in Europe at present.
OMV has an existing pilot plastic chemical recycling plant and is building another 16,000 tonnes per year facility in Austria that will take this feedstock.
