Page 20 - Plastics News April 2022

to pretreat and upgrade liquefied Prior to developing and increasing the
waste plastic to increase its processing facility’s capabilities, Neste will assess Pure Cycle Begins Building
capabilities for the material. This will options for innovation funding and Recycling Facility In Us
expedite the company’s efforts to collaborate with local authorities on
process more than one million tonnes various aspects of the investment.The
of waste plastic a year from 2030. In its firm plans to start implementing the
initial step, Neste aims to increase its project by 2024. Neste Oil Products
pretreatment and upgrading capacity executive vice-president Markku
to 400,000t a year. Neste Renewable Korvenranta said: “We are excited
Polymers and Chemicals executive vice- to continue to develop liquid waste
president Mercedes Alonso said: “By plastic processing capabilities at our
scaling up our processing capabilities, Porvoo refinery. “The planned new
ecycling
we enhance our ability to process hard- pretreatment and upgrading capabilities RTechnologies firm has PureCycle
begun
to-recycle waste plastics and help enable are part of our target to be the most construction works on a plastic
our value chain partners to deliver sustainable refinery in Europe by 2030 waste purification facility in Augusta,
substantial volumes of high-quality while supporting the transition to Georgia, US. The facility is located in
materials from recycled feedstock.”The circular polymers.” In December 2020, Augusta Corporate Park and covers a
project comes after Neste successfully Neste announced it had successfully 200-acre area. Its development was
completed its first series of trial runs processed 400t of liquefied plastic waste announced in July last year. The plant
processing liquefied waste plastic at the at its refinery. The company upgraded will convert Number Five plastic
Porvoo facility in January this year. The the packaging and mixed waste plastics waste into a sustainable material
company plans to carry out additional into recycled feedstock for use in the that can be used for manufacturing
trial runs with larger volumes this year. petrochemical industry. yoghurt cups, cosmetics, plastic
containers and car parts. The facility
will support up to eight purification
Greiner Packaging Joins Plastic Recycling Project Circplast-Mr lines, with a combined production
capacity of around one billion pounds
fields, including materials science and of like-new recycled plastic a year.
engineering, measurement and sensor PureCycle CEO Mike Otworth said:
technology, process engineering, and “This is an exciting time for PureCycle
digital innovation. The circPLAST-mr as we expand our operations into the
project aims to address the challenge Southeast and bring our versatile,
of separating different types of recycled plastic to the region. “Our
plastics, which exist in many forms...If second facility, when completed, will
successful, the project will make it easier transform Number Five plastic waste
for Austria to recycle the 920,000t of – one of the most commonly used
plastic waste it produces every year, as and least recycled plastics in the world
ultinational packaging company well as help the country comply with – into an ultra-pure material that can
MGreiner Packaging has joined the European Union’s (EU) plastics be used to make consumer products,
circPLAST-mr, a research project strategy. The strategy aims to achieve ultimately helping reduce our reliance
focused on the mechanical recycling a 55% recycling rate by 2030, up on single-use plastics that contaminate
of plastics. The project is led by the significantly from Austria’s current rate our oceans and waterways.” The site
will be PureCycle’s second plastic
Johannes Kepler University (JKU) of 26%. The €6.2m ($6.8m) project has waste purification facility in Augusta.
in Linz, Austria, and its Institute of secured €4m ($4.3m) in funding from The company expects to complete
Polymeric Materials and Testing, while Austria’s Ministry for Climate Action. It construction of the two purification
25 partners from the fields of science is due to run until March 2026. Greiner lines in the fourth quarter of next
and industry have also joined the Packaging CEO Manfred Stanek said: year. These lines will be capable of
initiative. These partners will contribute “As producers of plastic packaging, we producing 260 million pounds of
their knowledge of their respective are aware of the importance of a circular ‘like-new’ recycling resin a year.

20 PLASTICS NEWS April 2022