Plastic Energy

Plastic Energy Limited is the world’s leading pioneer in the chemical recycling of end-of-life plastic waste into synthetic hydrocarbon fuels, oils and into new plastics. Its technology headquarters is in the Innovation Center in London-UK, and the industrial plants in Almeria and Seville-Spain. 

The newly formed company has a viable and proven solution to the global problem of plastic waste pollution by transforming waste destined for landfills – globally, more than $300 billion worth a year – or the ocean, estimated to be eight million tonnes a year, into hydrocarbon fuels and oils and back to plastic through chemical recycling. 

The company uses a patented technology, Thermal Anaerobic Conversion (TAC) to convert end-of-life plastic into hydrocarbon oils, known as TACOIL. This can then be either used as a feedstock to create virgin-quality recycled plastics or alternative low-carbon fuels (open-loop Plastic2Oil). Plastic Energy aims at recycling plastics that are mixed, contaminated, multi-layered, as well as plastics that can no longer be mechanically recycled. This is the case especially for food-grade plastic packaging, especially films, wrappers, packets, tubs, and pots that represent complex packaging made of various polyolefins, and sometimes other layers such as metals or paper.

Unlike many competitors, who are either in the laboratory, at pilot plant stage or processing limited quantities of narrowly selected clean post-industrial plastics, Plastic Energy’s UK based team of technology specialists have 10 years’ experience developing the unique, TAC recycling process. TAC does not use catalysts which are often expensive, easily poisoned and hazardous to dispose. Instead, Plastic Energy’s TAC Plants are uniquely controlled using non-contaminated thermal degradation, agitation and carbon chain length selectivity to produce a variety of outputs. TAC is a low-pressure thermal depolymerisation process patented in Europe and the US. The process heats waste plastic in the absence of oxygen to generate oil from which either new plastic or oil can be made. 

Plastic Energy has an agreement with SABIC, which will process TACOIL (replacing virgin oil) into virgin-quality polymer granulates, certified by the ISCC, and then be supplied to key customers such as Unilever, Vinventions, or Walki Group to develop high quality, food-grade, packaging for food, beverage, personal and homecare products.

Based in the UK, they have two operational plants in Spain, in Seville and Almeria, and have announced plans to build in the Netherlands, Malaysia and Indonesia. They also have other projects in the pipeline including in France and in the UK. They expect to build the capacities for ten plants in Europe and ten in Asia by 2023.