PureCycle Technologies converts polypropylene (#5 Plastic) into ultra-pure resin used in everything from fast food coffee cups to carpets to films to electric vehicle parts. The company is replicating its molecular technology worldwide to recover more of the most-used, least-recycled plastics–at cost.
How do you separate polypropylene (#5 plastic) from post-consumer waste and convert it into ultra-pure resin?
The technology is about a decade in the making. Procter & Gamble invented the concept, filed all the patents and outsourced making it real to us. We did a bunch of laboratory tests and built a pilot plant in Ohio, where we had a hallelujah moment that this thing actually worked. We completed construction and started commissioning a commercial plant in 2022. The tech works definitively, and we are ready to copy and paste the model at scale.
Polypropylene is the greatest plastic on the planet because it is versatile, chemical-resistant and adaptable. It is used in so many different things and that is also the problem. If you look at a car bumper, you might think it is just plastic but it is actually more like 65% polypropylene, 20% rubber and 15-20 % talc. If you do not take a fundamental approach to recycling this and understanding how to address all of its components, you end up with an inferior product or plastics for fuel, not plastic to plastic conversion.
Mechanical recycling will wash the outside of this plastic, get the yogurt and peanut butter off. We wash through the plastic with what we think of as a molecular washing machine. The equipment looks like a plant about ten stories tall with vessels, mixers and extruders that kind of melt the plastic and push it in. So, we could take a bumper, wash all the rubber and talc out and mix the remainder with a solvent until we are left with perfect polypropylene in the end.
What distinguishes PureCycle and its product from competition?
We are singularly focused on recycling, not distracted by some other core business or initiatives. Our voice is pure, and our process is pure enough to make FDA-compliant food-grade polypropylene. We are also the only recycler in the world that can take post-consumer curbside waste, the material you dump into your trash can at home and turn it into fiber and film. This is difficult to do because there are so many contaminants in used plastic.
Recently, you secured a €40 million agreement with the European government for a project to convert 59,000 tons a year of plastic waste into proprietary resin at the Port of Antwerp-Bruges. How are international expansion efforts like these progressing?
We are really excited about building in Antwerp and have met all the key political figures in Belgium who took an old Astra vehicle plant, tore it down and turned it into the NextGen district attracting new technologies like ours. The plant should finish in 2028 and start up in 2029. This will be important for Europe, which is looking inward for materials after being heavily dependent on imports.
A plant in Thailand, very similar to what we are building in Antwerp, will be mechanically complete next year with a startup in 2028. We are also planning to build in Japan and partnering with Mitsui and Company .
What are some innovations on the horizon?
We are a fairly small and adaptable company. When we built our first plant, we began with a born digital concept and adopted technology more quickly than others. We are getting a lot of gains already out of AI, just in terms of doing work more efficiently, faster and better.
The major innovation now is a Gen 2 design for a much bigger plant to bring our expenditures and overall operation costs down. At full capacity, our process will use at least 55% less energy than virgin polypropylene generators, so I think our costs in the future will be even lower than theirs. We are providing a truly circular solution. This is really good for the world.
What do you think is driving market growth for recycled resin going forward and where does PureCycle fit into the forecast?
On the supply side, plastic waste finally has value. Before, it cost something to put in a landfill. On the demand side, consumers are tired of dumping plastic in the ground and seeing it in the ocean. Because they demand recycling, regulators are writing legislation.
I think there is going to be a natural draw to replace single-use plastics for snack bags and candy bar wrappers. These cannot be made out of other recycled material in the market but we are changing that game. Our resin can make plastic parts that go into HVAC equipment, computers, iPhones and EVs. I think we will have a big advantage in car interiors because the odor threshold of our resin is better than that of virgin plastic. Our material is a very high quality solution.
You can lose yourself trying to be everything to everybody but the volume of high quality material has not been big enough to meet all the needs of the industry. I think it comes down to building as many of these plants as possible all around the world to give options to anyone trying to buy recycled material. As PureCycle does this, it is going to scratch the itch of a lot of people who want to do the right thing.
Two hundred billion pounds of brand new polypropylene is made every year. Probably less than 5% of this is recycled but the percentage is growing at 3% to 4% a year – six to eight billion pounds of recovered materials. What are you going to build with it, the same old stuff? Or are you going to start building the future with PureCycle?
