The new EU-funded ReBioCycle Project provides a portfolio of bioplastic sorting and recycling technologies within three complementary waste-processor-centric hubs. These will be established for different technologies and technology readiness levels (TRL) in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and partly in Ireland. They will focus on mechanical recycling, chemical recycling, enzymatic recycling and microbial recycling.
AIMPLAS
The ReBioCycle Project kick-off occurred at the University College Dublin on 2-3 October 2024. European Bioplastics and its members, including AIMPLAS, TotalEnergies Corbion, Novamont, Corbion, Sulapac, and Kaneka are amongst the 20 partners that have joined forces for developing and implementing "A new European blueprint for circular bioplastics upcycling solutions", under the lead of the University College Dublin and BiOrbic Bioeconomy SFI Research Centre.
Prof. Kevin O’ Connor, coordinator of the project, expects that the “ReBioCycle will scale up and demonstrate biobased biodegradable plastics recycling technologies. Biobased biodegradable plastics can be kept in the material cycle for as long as possible through innovative recycling technologies, thus demonstrating that end-of-life biobased biodegradable plastics can be used in the circular bioeconomy.”
ReBioCycle will effectively separate the three types of bioplastics by re-adapting and upscaling sorting technologies. 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 streams. It will also prove that biodegradable plastics are fully recyclable and up-cyclable.
AIMPLAS will coordinate the Spanish Hub, working on sorting, mechanical recycling and bioplastics enzymatic recycling. Besides, AIMPLAS will categorise and validate the final recycled materials obtained in the project. In this regard, Pablo Ferrero, Biotechnology Group leader of AIMPLAS points out that the main ambition of the Spanish Hub is to demonstrate the feasibility of recycling bioplastics through different technologies, ensuring their quality for reprocessing.
Gerrit Gobius du Sart, Corporate Scientists of TotalEnergies Corbion, indicates that “The bioplastics industry has a responsibility to preserve material value to minimise our impact on the environment. Valorising PLA waste as a feedstock for either chemical or mechanical recycling is an enormous opportunity.”
The project will result in a Blueprint, which is a position paper on the state of the art of bioplastics recycling, to provide a direct contribution to several European action plans and strategies, such as the Bioeconomy Strategy, the Circular Economy Action Plan and the future Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation.
Hasso von Pogrell, Managing Director of European Bioplastics indicates that “European Bioplastics strongly believes that an actionable EU Bioeconomy Strategy should be a top priority to safeguard the strength of our European industries. 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”.