Update: Partnership to study chemically recycling plastics from ASR

Eastman, Kingsport, Tennessee, has announced that it is collaborating with Padnos and the United States Automotive Materials Partnership LLC (USAMP) on a concept feasibility study to recycle mixed plastic scrap recovered from automotive shredder residue (ASR). USAMP is a subsidiary of the United States Council for Automotive Research LLC (USCAR).  

ASR consists of mixed plastic and other materials and currently end up in landfills or in waste-to-energy technologies. Under this initiative, Padnos, Holland, Michigan, will supply ASR as a feedstock for Eastman's molecular recycling process. The company operates auto shredders in Holland and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The study, which begins this month and will extend for a year, also will assess how well Eastman's carbon renewal technology (CRT), one of the company's two molecular recycling technologies, breaks down the plastic-rich fraction of ASR into molecular building blocks. By recycling these complex plastics using CRT, Eastman says it can replace fossil-based feedstock and create polymers without compromising performance for use in new automotive applications.

Created by modifying the front end of Eastman's cellulosics production, CRT converts end-of-life plastic feedstock into molecular components. Eastman says the process partially oxidizes the plastic feedstock and efficiently converts it into the basic building blocks of certain Eastman products, including Advanced Materials and Fibers segment products that serve ophthalmics, durables, packaging, textiles and nonwovens end-use markets. When the company announced the technology in the spring of 2019, it said it is capable of recycling some of the most complex end-of-life plastics, including nonpolyester plastics, flexible packaging and plastic film and mixed plastics that cannot be recycled conventionally.

A spokesperson for Eastman says the company will make Treva Renew and also copolyesters, such as Tritan Renew, from these feedstocks. Eastman says Treve Renew offers chemically recycled content in addition to bio-content. 

USAMP says the technology could result in the potential for energy savings and reduced overall greenhouse gas emissions while diverting a significant fraction of the 5 to 7 million tons of ASR generated annually in the United States from landfills.

"This 12-month automotive recycling project with Eastman and Padnos is part of USAMP's broad materials research and sustainability program," says Steve Zimmer, executive director of USCAR. "Programs like this are critical to establishing a cost-effective pathway for addressing challenges associated with the consumption of ASR back into automotive parts to enable true industry circularity."

Steve Crawford, executive vice president, chief technology and sustainability officer for Eastman, says this as a prime example of how collaboration across the value chain is essential to making material circularity mainstream.

"Our molecular recycling technologies are recycling complex plastic waste at commercial scale now, but technologies alone won't build a circular economy—it takes work across the value chain by multiple players who are determined to deliver sustainable solutions," Crawford says. "That's why this project is so exciting. The member companies of USCAR—Ford, General Motors and Stellantis—are accelerating their approach to designing for more sustainable end-of-life solutions, and this project can be a catalyst for circularity within the automotive value stream that addresses both the climate and waste plastic issues and reshapes what we thought was possible." 

Eastman is building a “molecular” recycling facility for end-of-life polyester products and packaging at its existing site in Kingsport. That facility will use methanolysis, the company's polyester renewal technology, to convert difficult-to-recycle end-of-life polyester products and polyethylene terephthalate packaging into recycled raw materials that will be used to produce the company’s specialty plastics.