German packaging producer responsibility organisation Landbell and the French technology firm Carbios plan to cooperate to recycle post-consumer PET waste. Under a memorandum of understanding (MOU), Landbell will supply 15,000 tonnes per year of PET flakes from Germany to a recycling facility that Carbios is building in Longlaville in the East of France. This first industrial-scale "biorecycling" plant would start accepting material from Landbell in 2026. Carbios, which is investing around €230m in the plant, says it will use its proprietary enzyme-based depolymerisation process to produce the monomers PTA and MEG from waste PET and polyester.
The PET flakes will not be made from bottles, as mechanical recycling of this waste stream is working very well, said Landbell CEO Jan Patrick Schulz and Carbios CEO Emmanuel Ladent in a joint online press conference. Instead, the focus is on packaging such as multi-layer trays and opaque containers made of PET.
Read the full article with further details of the agreement and information on other feedstock materials Carbios is exploring....
