Carbios, Indorama to cooperate on French plastics recycling effort

Thailand-based plastics producer and recycler Indorama Ventures Ltd. (IVL) has agreed to collaborate with France-based Carbios to install a system deploying Carbios’ polyethylene terephthalate (PET) “bio-recycling” technology at IVL’s PET production site in Longlaville, France.

“We are very pleased that Carbios and Indorama Ventures have chosen France to build their first 100 percent bio-recycled PET manufacturing plant,” states Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of the Economy, Finance and the Recovery.

The capital investment required for the project is expected to be around 150 million euros ($168.6 million) for Carbios technology plus an estimated 50 million euros ($56.2 million) investment to be “allocated for the infrastructure preparation of the site,” according to the two companies.

Carbios says it expects to finalize “strong nondilutive financial support from French government and from the Grand-Est Region” of France, although that will be “conditional on the notification to the European Commission and on contractualization by French authorities.”

“We are pleased to implement Carbios’ innovative and transformative technology at our Longlaville site,” says D K Agarwal, CEO of Indorama Ventures. “Bio-recycled PET addresses customers’ growing demand to contribute to a cleaner planet through high-quality plastics while decreasing the use of hydrocarbons.”

Carbios has a demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand, France. The firm says the IVL collaboration moves it toward its goal to build and operate in France “the world’s first industrial-scale enzymatic PET bio-recycling plant, with a processing capacity estimated at around 50,000 tons of postconsumer PET [scrap] per year, equivalent to 2 billion PET bottles or 2.5 billion PET trays.”

“With this first medium-sized plant, we want to become the world reference for the Circular Economy of plastics and textiles,” says Emmanuel Ladent, CEO of Carbios. “By engaging in such a partnership with Indorama Ventures, we confirm our commitment to pursue our initial industrial development in France. This plant will pave the way towards international commercial and industrial deployment. We are grateful to our shareholders, partners, the French government, and Grand-Est Region for sharing Carbios’ ambitions and vision towards a profitable circular economy.”

Carbios says its technology involves combining enzymes and plastics and it “aims to address new consumer expectations and the challenges of a broader ecological transition by taking up a major challenge of our time: plastic and textile pollution.”

Indorama Ventures describes itself as one of the world’s leading petrochemicals producers, with a global manufacturing footprint in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia Pacific. The company has approximately 24,000 employees worldwide.