Alterra, Freepoint sign licensing agreement

Alterra has announced that it has licensed its chemical recycling technology to a subsidiary of Freepoint Eco-Systems Holdings LLC for a proposed chemical recycling facility to be sited in the Gulf Coast region, marking its first licensing transaction in North America. This 192,000-metric-ton-per-year facility will be among the largest advanced recycling plants in the world, with the potential to increase the capacity to 288,000 metric tons per year, according to the Akron, Ohio-based company.

Currently, Alterra operates an industrial-scale, fully continuous recycling facility in Akron that can process 20,000 metric tons of plastic per year. The company licenses its proprietary technology to convert end-of-life plastic into feedstock for new plastic products worldwide.

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“We are excited that an established global commodities merchant with a focus on owning and operating advanced recycling assets to minimize the reliance on fossil fuels for plastic production has chosen the Alterra technology,” says Alterra CEO Frederic Schmuck. “Freepoint shares our vision of a cleaner planet. They are a formidable partner as we build a solution to meet our industry’s circularity goals and enable a world where plastic is never discarded but instead remade over and over.”

“Freepoint selected the Alterra recycling process for our potential Gulf Coast facility because it has successfully operated at commercial scale in the recycling of hard-to-recycle waste plastics,” Jeff McMahon, managing director of Stamford, Connecticut-based Freepoint, says. “This project will increase the recycled content of the new plastic produced, significantly reduce carbon emissions, divert almost 200,000 tons per year of waste from landfills, as well as assist in the creation of a more sustainable economy and a healthier planet.” 

Freepoint announced plans in late 2021 to build an advanced recycling facility in Ohio that will convert scrap plastic into feedstock for use in the production of prime-quality plastic. The company broke ground on that plant, in Hebron, Ohio, in late 2022. It will span 25 acres and use an existing 260,000-square-foot warehouse. It will be able to recycle 90,000 tons of materials per year. Earlier in 2021, the company announced that it was constructing its first chemical recycling facility in Texas as part of a strategic partnership with Plastic Energy Ltd. and TotalEnergies.

The Gulf Coast facility the company is licensing Alterra’s technology for will recycle end-of-life plastic otherwise destined for landfills or incineration, producing ISCC Plus-certified outputs that will be sold exclusively to Shell under a supply agreement.

Phil Turley, general manager of plastic circularity at Shell, says, “Shell is delighted to be strengthening its existing relationships with Alterra and Freepoint. With the potential to recycle more than 190,000 [metric tons] of postuse plastic per year, this facility will support Shell in delivering more of the circular chemicals our customers want.”

Among the other licensing agreements Alterra has entered into globally is with a joint venture formed by Neste Oyj, an oil refining and marketing company based in Espoo, Finland, and Ravago, a recycler and distributor of polymers that is based in Luxembourg, for a facility in the North Sea Port in Vlissingen, the Netherlands.