EsterCycle

EsterCycle has a chemical process that recycles mixed petroleum and biobased plastics with properties that match virgin materials. The technology was developed at the National Laboratory of the Rockies in collaboration with Amazon. The plastic deconstruction reaction has been scaled to 5 kg of mixed post-consumer feedstocks and tested with a variety of waste streams, downstream monomer separation and purification steps have been demonstrated, third party validation of recycled monomer purity in collaboration with industry partners has been performed, and we recently completed our first paid pilot with Amazon. At commercial scale, plastics recycled using EsterCycle will be economically competitive with virgin materials while abating greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50%. Beyond the emissions reduction, commercialization of EsterCycle’s technology would reduce the impacts of plastic production and disposal, create roughly 50 jobs per plant, and advance a sustainable bioeconomy.