Cyclyx receives ACC Sustainability Leadership Award

Cyclyx International, based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has been selected by the Washington-based American Chemistry Council (ACC) as the 2024 Sustainability Leadership Award winner in the External Collaborator category. The award recognizes Cyclyx for its collaborative work with Houston-based ACC members ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell.

The ACC's Sustainability Leadership awards honor member companies for their achievements and contributions to sustainability across areas including product safety; innovation and transparency; environmental protection; circularity; and social responsibility and community engagement.

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The External Collaborator award recognizes an organization that has collaborated with an ACC member on an initiative that has made significant contributions to drive sustainability and innovation. The ACC convened a judging panel made up of external sustainability leaders from academia, nonprofit and media sectors to review and select award winners. The judging panel chose winning initiatives based on a range of factors, including the level of innovation the initiative demonstrated, the scope and reach of its impacts and the extent to which it addresses priorities outlined in the ACC’s sustainability principles and the United Nations sustainable development goals.

“We are honored that Cyclyx received this incredible recognition for our efforts to turn plastic waste into a valued resource,” Cyclyx CEO Joe Vaillancourt says. “Our innovative approach demonstrates what's possible—plastic collection through our 10to90 programs, chemical characterization to understand the plastic waste and custom compounding of recipes for our recycling partners. We strive to be good stewards of this underutilized resource, building out the necessary infrastructure to support a plastic circular economy. The ACC's selection of Cyclyx for this award is a privilege and validation of the amazing work happening by all stakeholders brought together through the Cyclyx Consortium.” 

Through its 10to90 program, Cyclyx says it aims to increase the recyclability of plastic from 10 percent to 90 percent. By implementing 10to90 all-plastic collection and landfill diversion programs in communities, Cyclyx says a wider variety of plastic materials—including hard-to-recycle materials like used food packaging, packaging foam, bubble wrap and more—has the potential to enter a recycling pathway. Cyclyx says one example includes 10to90 programs it has created at collection sites and schools in the city of Houston through which over 440,000 pounds of plastic scrap have been collected to date.

Cyclyx says by leveraging predictive modeling based on its database it built over 20 years, it analyzes samples of the aggregated plastic scrap for chemical composition and polymer type. The materials collected from the Houston 10to90 programs will be sent to the Cyclyx Circularity Center (CCC1), a custom compounding and processing facility located in the Houston Tradeport, when CCC1 becomes operational in mid-2025. The facility will sort, custom compound and preprocess plastic scrap into a feedstock that meets the technical specifications of companies like ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell. The CCC1 will have the capacity to produce 300 million pounds of plastic recycling feedstock per year.