A new EU-funded project is aiming to scale mechanical, chemical, and biorecycling technologies for biodegradable plastics.
The ReBioCycle consortium is a European Bioplastics project led by the University of Dublin, Ireland. It includes three hubs focusing on waste processing in Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands. The Dutch hub includes TotalEnergies Corbion, Torwash, Paques biomaterials, Kaneka, and the Dutch National Test Centre Circular Plastics (NTCP). Aimplas is amongst the participating partners in Spain, whilst Novamont and Iren are joining from Italy.
The partners aim to demonstrate that PLA, PHA, and composites can be efficiently recycled at scale.
“The current recycling technologies available for recycling biodegradable plastics are limited, but with this project we are going to make them widely available,” said Jan Pels CTO and managing director of Torwash, leader of the Dutch hub. “Then nobody can claim that the switch to biodegradable plastics cannot be made, because they cannot be recycled,” he added.
ReBioCycle will adapt and improve sorting technologies to separate the three types of bioplastics. It will also propose a portfolio of bioplastics recycling technologies at a relevant scale and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technologies, their economic viability, and their possible integration at an industrially relevant scale through data stream. The project partners aims to show that biodegradable plastics are fully recyclable. It is often argued that bioplastics like PLA contaminate the recycling stream, but tests have shown that PLA can be sorted from municipal mixed plastic waste using standard Near Infra-Red (NIR) equipment.
Partners in each hub will be responsible for verifying the industrial grade specifications by biopolymer brand owner. They will perform an analysis of final quality of the recycled material in both durable and multi-use packaging.
The final goal of the project is to produce a position paper on the state of the art of bioplastics recycling to contribute to several European action plans and strategies, such as the Bioeconomy Strategy, the Circular Economy Action Plan, as well as the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation.
The PPWR set a Dec. 31, 2025, deadline to publish a report assessing the possibility of laying down targets for the use of bio-based plastic feedstock on packaging, counting towards mandatory recycled content targets. In particular, the Commission is considering meeting up to 50% of the recycled content targets by using bioplastics.
“European Bioplastics strongly believes that an actionable EU Bioeconomy Strategy should be a top priority to safeguard the strength of our European industries,” said Hasso von Pogrell, managing director of European Bioplastics. “This is only possible with a strong collaboration between all stakeholders, more policy support, and technological advancement. This project is an outstanding example of this collaboration and will bring great advancement to the recycling of bioplastics”.
The ReBioCycle project has received €7.5 million funding from the Circular Bio-based Joint Undertaking through Horizon Europe, the EU’s funding programme for research and innovation.
Source: sustainableplastics.com
