| Project Detail |
New recycling process for PET shows promise for a true circular economy
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic is one of the world’s major pollutants, and large-scale PET recycling efforts are limited by technological barriers. The ChemPET project has developed a chemical recycling technology that converts a wide range of PET plastics into bis (2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET), the monomer building block of PET. This can then be used to form virgin PET, closing the circular economy loop and avoiding the use of crude oil substrates to produce new PET plastics. ChemPET will now look to optimise and scale this process up, and collaborate across the plastics and recycling value chain to ensure the process is widely used. |
