CircuPlast - Assessment of a Novel Process Technology to Enable a Circular Approach to the Management of Plastics Packaging Waste

This project will seek to assess and validate a novel process technology that will seek to enhance plastics packaging waste recycling rates and increase the recycled content of plastics packaging, whilst preventing the release of plastics waste into the environment.

Using water as a green solvent, our super critical water (SCW) technology aims to enable the indiscriminate recycling of plastics (PP, PE, LDPE, HDPE and laminates) into a chemical feedstock for primary plastics manufacture, offsetting the requirement for fossil-oil derivatives for plastics production.

This project will therefore seek to assess the applicability of our SCW for plastics recycling, enabling the preliminary design of a commercial scale plant to be completed, and enabling a review of both capital and operational costs. The project will also seek to identify how this novel technology can be deployed within the waste plastics packaging supply chain, enabling highly efficient recycling of plastics whilst providing a sustainable source of chemical feedstock for primary plastics manufacture.

As well as helping to address the well documented issues relating to plastics in the environment, this project will also seek to enable a truly circular economy approach to the management of waste plastics packaging.