A boost to chemical recycling

SÜDPACK and Clean Cycle have signed an agreement for a long-term investment in the unique CARBOLIQ technology developed by Recenso. The decision is the logical consequence of the cooperation between SÜDPACK and CARBOLIQ that started about a year ago. Now the three companies Clean Cycle, SÜDPACK, and CARBOLIQ pool their expertise in the area of material management with chemical recycling. Their aim is to further expand available capacities for the innovative and highly efficient chemical recycling of a wide range of plastics. They plan to make currently non-reusable packaging materials suitable for recycling and for the circular economy that will be necessary in the future.

With the operation of the pilot plant at the disposal centre in Ennigerloh, SÜDPACK and CARBOLIQ have proved that numerous material fractions as well as mixed and contaminated plastic wastes can be converted into a valuable resource. Apart from the large diversity of input materials, the CARBOLIQ process offers competitive advantages in terms of energy efficiency and low emissions. The oil recovered is virgin-grade quality and can be used by the plastics industry in the same way as fossil fuels to produce a wide spectrum of plastic granulates. These granulates can in turn be processed to produce high-performance films for sophisticated packaging applications which are required above all in the food industry.

So far, the cooperation partners have successfully applied the technology both for resource recovery from their own recyclable material flows as well as for recycling packaging materials from processing and from end customers. The Recenso plants for direct oiling work according to the catalytic tribochemical conversion (CTC) process and are unique in the world.

The investment in CARBOLIQ creates a powerful company that will in the medium term continually expand its capacities for highly efficient recycling of a wide variety of plastics.

For SÜDPACK, the investment in CARBOLIQ is additionally a significant move towards the goal of a zero-waste company. The aim is zero waste not only in its own material management, but also in that of customers and stakeholders along the entire value creation chain. In addition to solutions for flexible films for the food packaging industry, CARBOLIQ also has a number of promising ideas in the fields of medical product packaging and technical applications: “So not only customers of our Business Unit Food benefit, but also customers of our Business Unit Medica and Business Unit Functional Films & Compounds. That’s because in the long term we believe it will be essential also on these markets to close cycles and permanently reduce the input of fossil raw materials,” says Johannes Remmele, entrepreneur und owner of the SÜDPACK Group.