A joint venture company Poseidon Plastics has announced plans to construct a 10,000 tonnes per year facility in Teesside that will process ‘difficult to recycle’ plastics.
The company is a joint venture between Green Lizard Technologies, Panima Capital and Abundia Industries.
It is a waste polyester recycling company and co-developers of a unique monomer recycling technology that converts polyester to recycled raw material (BHET) to produce virgin PET.
Poseidon Plastics has signed a memorandum of understanding with DuPont Teijin Films (DTF) to assist and develop the technology and create the pathway to building the facility.
Previously, the technology has operated at 1,000 tonnes per year scale, but the second generation facility will be of commercial scale at 10,000 tonnes per year.
The company is aiming to start detailed engineering design at the site in the first quarter of 2020 with the aim of opening within 18 months.
Alongside this, it will also design a 50,000 tonnes per annum process that can be licensed out for larger scale facilities globally.
It aims to recycle problematic waste streams such as trays, pots, containers, fibres/fabrics and all types of polyester into consumer grade rBHET.
As part of the agreement DTF will support Poseidon with a range of testing and processing of BHET into PET polymer and BOPET films. They will also assist it in navigating regulatory and legislative standards.
Poseidon Plastics chief executive Martin Atkins said: “The Poseidon team is delighted to make this announcement , and we are extremely proud to have taken the ‘Poseidon Process’ to this stage.
“It is very rewarding to have the recognition from industry leaders as partners, allowing us to learn from their years of experience and know how to expand, accelerate, and scale-up our technology.
“Completing the supply chain for the circular economy in PET has been one of our primary goals focusing on difficult to recycle waste PET materials.”
DTF global technology director Dave Wall added: “We are delighted to be involved in this exciting project and it underlines how important monomer recycling is to DuPont Teijin Films’ overall sustainability strategy.
“We believe that this type of monomer recycling will play an increasingly important role to boost the circularity of PET, opening up new waste streams which currently cannot be economically mechanically recycled, and providing high value end markets for recycled polyester.”
Green Lizard Technologies is a spin out company from Queen’s University Belfast.
Poseidon Plastics is based at the Wilton Centre science and research park in Teesside where it has acquired office and laboratory space as well as land to develop its plant
