From the Sector

Carbios and L’Oréal have won the “Pioneer Awards” in the Industry category, presented by the Solar Impulse Foundation at the first World Alliance Summit. This prize was awarded to Carbios for its enzymatic PET recycling solution, labeled “Efficient Solution” by the Solar Impulse Foundation since 2019, and to L’Oréal for using this technology for the first time in a cosmetics bottle prototype. Carbios’ solution offers brands an alternative to petro-sourced plastic that helps them meet their sustainability commitments. This advancement paves the way for future applications in other sectors such as packaging, food and beverage, and textiles.

Carbios and L’Oréal: a long-term collaboration
Since 2017, Carbios and L’Oréal have been working together with a shared vision of accelerating the transition to a circular economy for plastic. In 2017, both companies created a Consortium to improve the recyclability and circularity of PET packaging.  Nestlé Waters, PepsiCo and Suntory Beverage & Food Europe joined this Consortium in 2019 to scale up Carbios’ innovation. The world’s first enzymatically recycled PET packaging was made in 2021 using Carbios’ biorecycling process. The world’s first PET biorecycling plant is scheduled to be commissioned in 2025. In parallel, Carbios is rolling out its technology internationally through licensing agreements.

The environmental benefits of biorecycling developed by Carbios
Recent life-cycle analyses^[1] show a 57% reduction in CO₂ emissions compared with the production of virgin plastic^[2], and for every tonne of recycled PET produced, 1.3 tonnes of petrol are avoided. Compared with conventional recycling, enzymatic recycling is 4 times more circular (calculated according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Material Circularity Indicator). Thanks to its highly selective enzyme, optimized for efficient PET degradation, Carbios’ depolymerization process can process all types of PET waste, including colored, multilayer or textile waste that cannot be recycled using current technologies. Furthermore, the two monomers produced (PTA and MEG) make it possible to recreate recycled PET products of identical quality to virgin ones, and suitable for food contact.
 
 
^[1] Database ecoinvent 3.8
^[2] French scenario, taking into account the detour of 50% of PET waste from conventional end-of-life. Virgin PET: 2.53 kg CO₂/kg (cradle to gate)

Freudenberg Performance Materials Apparel (Freudenberg) launches two advanced thermal insulation products made from low-level Bisphenol A (BPA) recycled PET fibers (rPET) into the global range of comfortemp®, Freudenberg’s thermal insulation brand.

The additions of DOWN FEEL WA 150LB and FIBERBALL WB 400LB to the comfortemp® global range serve as high-quality and ecologically-minded alternatives to down, enhancing the comfort and sustainability of your garments. DOWN FEEL WA 150LB is an extremely-lightweight, loose fiber thermal insulation with a super-light loft, while FIBERBALL WB 400LB uses clusters of extra-fine fibers to offer optimal breathability, maximum comfort, and minimal clumping after washing and drying.

GRS-certified and OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 Class I certifications
Both products utilize 100% GRS-certified rPET fibers, customizable to any desired fill levels. Additionally, these new products not only comply with but significantly surpass the stringent OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 Class I certifications. While OEKO-TEX® categorizes low-level BPA as less than 100 parts per million (ppm), these new products contain less than 1 ppm BPA, a testament to Freudenberg’s unyielding standards.

DOWN FEEL WA 150LB and FIBERBALL WB 400LB are available globally and more low-level BPA thermal insulation options are available in Asia.

Carbios inaugurated its textile preparation line at its demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand, in the presence of Mr. Lescure, French Minister for Industry. To streamline the textile preparation phase, which is currently carried out by hand or on several lines, Carbios has developed a fully integrated and automated line that transforms textile waste from used garments or cutting scraps into raw material suitable for depolymerization with its enzymatic biorecycling process. This patented line integrates all preparation stages (shredding and extraction of hard points such as buttons or fasteners), and provides Carbios with a high-performance, scalable development tool. The platform will help validate the biorecycling technology for textiles at demonstration plant scale (by 2024), and provides Carbios with expertise in working with collection and sorting operators to specify the quality of textiles and the preparation steps needed to make them suitable for enzymatic recycling. This expertise will also be invaluable to brands in the eco-design of their products.

Current collection, sorting and preparation infrastructures limit the amount of textile waste available for “fiber-to-fiber” recycling. Collection rates average around 15-25% worldwide^[1], and much of the waste collected is exported to Africa, Asia or Latin America for sorting.

Moreover, textiles are highly complex materials, with yarns of different composition (or nature) that are difficult, if not impossible, to physically separate. However, the highly selective enzyme developed by Carbios can specifically depolymerize the PET (polyester) present in textile material.

At present, textiles are sorted and prepared mainly by hand, with low yields, particularly for disruptors to recycling processes such as “hard points” (zips, buttons, etc.). To optimize this crucial phase, Carbios is contributing a textile preparation solution to accelerate the development of biorecycling in the textile industry. Enzymatic recycling, or biorecycling, therefore contributes to the construction of a textile recycling chain and the acceleration of textile circularity, also enabling brands to do away with used bottles.

^[1] Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017

The project "A Dress For Venice" get on the Red Carpet at the Venice Film Festival to advocate for sustainability. September 7th, actress Margot Sikabonyi will wear a dress from the collection designed by conscious designer Tiziano Guardini, illustrated by artist Jacopo Ascari, and produced by Martina Vidal Venezia, with the following materials:

• Bemberg™: The innovative and biodegradable fiber from the Japanese company Asahi Kasei.
• Burano lace: Produced by the historic Martina Vidal Venezia for four generations.

"Returning to Venice and experiencing the emotions of this place and the artists who have enriched it is exhilarating," says Tiziano Guardini. "It's a work based on volumes, shapes, three-dimensionality, colours and materials research… from Mariano Fortuny to the Ottoman Empire's Turcherie."

Illustrator Ascari adds, "I started with a careful study of the works of Canaletto, Guardi and Bellotto, masterpieces of Eighteenth-Century Vedutismo. I portrayed new perspectives on the city's splendour, enhanced by Guardini's vibrant shapes and color choices."

On Thursday, September 7th, at 12:30, in the Veneto Region's room at the Hotel Excelsior on Lido, Elena Donazzan, Councilor for Education, Training, Employment, and Equal Opportunities, will present the project alongside its creators Laura Scarpa and Lorenzo Cinotti of Venezia da Vivere, designer Tiziano Guardini, artist Jacopo Ascari, and actress Margot Sikabonyi.

"We conceived A Dress For Venice for Homo Faber in 2019, to celebrate Venice's 1600 years of craftsmanship," explains Laura Scarpa. "This year, the research extends to sustainable innovation thanks to an international team of designers, artisans and companies," continues Lorenzo Cinotti.

The project reaffirms Venice's role as an international laboratory to reflect on the planet's future. "A Dress For Venice" is a limited-edition collection realized with the support of a network of companies identified by the Tavolo Veneto della Moda (Confartigianato, CNA, Confindustria, Confesercenti and Confcommercio of Veneto), the global platform C.L.A.S.S. (Creativity Lifestyle and Sustainable Synergy), the partnership of Camera Buyer Italia and the media partnership of The Italian Rêve.

The presentation of the collection to buyers will take place at the Marina Guidi showroom in mid-September, while it will have its dedicated exhibition on Friday, October 20th, during the Venice Fashion Week.

"A Dress for Venice" is endorsed by the Comune di Venezia, the Regione del Veneto, and Homo Faber - Fondazione Cologni dei Mestieri d’Arte, which promotes worldwide high craftsmanship and savoir-faire.

Partners in the project Infinity srl and Tessitura Grisotto, renowned Italian textile manufacturers who expertly craft Bemberg™ fiber into exquisite fabrics. Creazioni Digitali, a specialized company in sublimation digital printing, carries out the prints on Bemberg™ textiles with its unique project GreenDrop; with inks that reduces the water consumption.

Other partners include Marina Iremonger, Camera Buyer Italia, and the Tavolo Veneto della Moda, representing Confartigianato, CNA, Confindustria, Confcommercio, and Confesercenti.

To reach its goal of being the world’s leading supplier of enhanced recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET), gr3n is signing a binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with its shareholder Intecsa Industrial to set up a Joint Venture.

gr3n together with Intecsa Industrial will join forces and build a “First-of-a-Kind” manufacturing facility able to produce 40.000 tons of virgin-like PET, commencing EPC phase in Q4-2024 and aiming to be operational in 2027. gr3n’s chemical recycling technology is capable of processing PET from various industries including textile waste, closing the loop for hard-to-recycle PET applications.

The world’s first industrial-scale MADE PET recycling plant will have the capability to process post-industrial and post-consumer PET waste including hard-to-recycle waste, to produce approximately 40.000 tons of virgin PET chips from the recycled monomers saving nearly 2 million tons of CO2 during its operating life. The post-consumer and/or post-industrial polyesters will be both from bottles (colored, colorless, transparent, opaque) and textiles (100% polyester but also mixtures of other materials like PU, cotton, polyether, polyurea, etc. with up to 30% of presence in the raw textile).

The technical concept of the MADE plant is to break down PET into its main components (monomers) so they can potentially be re-polymerized endlessly to provide brand new virgin PET or any other polymer using one of the monomers. Polymers obtained can be used to produce new bottles/trays and/or new garments, essentially completely displacing feedstock material from fossil fuels, as the recycled product has the same functionality as that derived traditionally. This means that gr3n can potentially achieve bottle-to-textile, textile-to-textile, or even textile-to-bottle recycling, moving from a linear to a circular system.

gr3n’s process has the potential to change the way PET is recycled worldwide, enabling huge benefits for both the recycling industry and the entire polyester value chain. Many efforts have been made in the past to transfer enhanced recycling from research laboratories to the manufacturing industry, but the economics and skepticism of the first adopters have constantly blocked the progress of the proposed solutions. Thanks to the MADE technology developed by gr3n, this approach is now feasible and makes gr3n one of the few companies with the potential to provide a reliable enhanced recycling solution that closes the life cycle of PET, and also offers food grade polymer material, processes a large variety of waste and reduces the carbon footprint of these materials usually destined for incineration or landfill.

Freudenberg Performance Materials (Freudenberg) will be presenting new applications for its European environmentally-friendly Evolon® microfiber technology for Fall/Winter 24/25 fashion and leather goods collections at Lineapelle, from September 19-21. These include solutions for artificial leather applications suitable for the shoe, furniture and automotive industries.

Evolon® sustainable microfiber coating substrates
Evolon® microfiber fabrics are ideal coating substrates for artificial leather applications in the shoe, furniture and car industries. They are particularly suitable as a carrier material for PU and PVC coatings. Evolon® microfiber materials have non-fraying edges, which makes converting easier and quicker. They contain 80% recycled PET from Freudenberg’s in-house bottle recycling plant. Furthermore, they are manufactured with no solvent and no chemical binder in the company’s Evolon® plant located in Colmar, France. The plant is accredited according to OEKO-TEX STeP sustainability manufacturing certification and the DETOX TO ZERO criteria. European manufacturing offers logistic benefits to European customers through shorter supply chain and transport routes.

Reinforcement material for leather goods
Manufacturers of leather goods also benefit from Evolon® microfiber when they use it as a reinforcement material for original leather. It is drapable and soft and provides optimal shaping support for leather. In addition, Evolon® materials offer important sustainability advantages for the manufacturing of luxury leather bags, such as being 100% made in Europe, eco-friendly and socially-responsible production, and the use of recycled raw materials.

Nylon 6, nylon 6,6, polypropylene, PET and calcium carbonate are available through the company’s proprietary carpet recycling process

Circular Polymers by Ascend, a market-leading recycler of post-consumer carpet, today the launch of Cerene™, a line of recycled polymers and materials made from the company’s proprietary carpet reclaiming technology. Cerene is available as polyamide 6 and 66, PET, polypropylene and calcium carbonate as a consistent,
sustainable feedstock for many applications, including molding and compounding.
Recycling experts from Circular Polymers will be showcasing Cerene at Compounding World Expo on June 14-15 at the Messe Essen in Germany.

Ascend Performance Materials, a fully integrated producer of durable high-performance materials and the majority owner of Circular Polymers by Ascend, is known for its innovations in nylon 6,6. Cerene will continue that legacy with offerings in nylon 6,6 while also bringing to market recycled polymers such as nylon 6, PET and PP.

“Customers around the globe are seeking consistent and reliable post-consumer recycled materials,” said Maria Field, business director of Circular Polymers by Ascend. “Cerene is mechanically recycled using a process that minimizes our carbon footprint and environmental impact.”

Circular Polymers by Ascend converts post-consumer carpet into fiber and pellets. The company uses a proprietary process in its California-based facilities to achieve high efficiency in recycling, successfully providing a new life for virtually every component of the carpet and backing. The company has redirected 85 million pounds of carpet from landfills into new goods since 2018.

Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL) and Carbios, a biotech company developing and industrializing biological solutions to reinvent the life cycle of plastic and textiles, announce the signing of a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to form a Joint Venture for the construction of the world’s first PET biorecycling plant in France.  

Based on and subject to the comprehensive terms set out in the MOU, Indorama Ventures plans to mobilize about €110 million for the Joint Venture in equity and non-convertible loan financing , pending final engineering documentation and final economic feasibility studies. Both parties have acknowledged their mutual support for the implementation of the project and their intent to finalize contract documentation before end 2023.

Subject to the successful performance of this first plant in France, Indorama Ventures confirms its intention to potentially expand the technology to other PET sites for future developments.

Under the agreement signed June 1, Carbios, which filed for plant permitting in December 2022, should acquire 13ha land from Indorama Ventures’ existing PET plant at Longlaville and expects to be granted permits by Q3 2023, allowing start of construction by end of 2023 and targeted commissioning in 2025.  The land surface offers the possibility to double capacity. Pursuant to this MOU, Indorama Ventures shall ensure 100% of output repolymerization and both partners shall collaborate to secure feedstock supply.

The total capital investment for the new plant is re-estimated to be around €230 million, taking into account recent impact from inflation. Project costs shall be financed by the sums mobilized by Indorama Ventures, the French State and Grand-Est Region subsidies available for the project , and by equity capitalization of the Joint Venture by Carbios. Part of Carbios’ equity injection into the Joint Venture shall be financed by a portion of Carbios’ current cash position (i.e. €86 million as of 30 April 2023). Carbios is actively examining the best options to finance its remaining equity injection into the Joint Venture and will choose the most appropriate solution and timeline based on market conditions.

The project is part of Indorama Ventures’ Vision 2030 ambition to build on its leadership as a global sustainable chemical company. The company’s ESG commitments include spending $1.5 billion to increase its recycling capacity to 50 billion PET bottles per year by 2025 and 100 billion bottles per year by 2030. To meet these goals, Indorama Ventures, the world’s largest producer of recycled PET resin used in beverage bottles, is investing in new recycling technologies, including advanced recycling, in addition to expanding its global footprint of mechanical recycling sites, including two in France.

Carbios has developed a disruptive enzymatic depolymerization technology that enables efficient and solvent-free recycling of PET plastic and textile waste into virgin-like products with an aim to achieve true circularity. Carbios has ambitious plans to become a leading technology provider in advanced recycling of PET by 2035. After successful ongoing operations in its demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand in France, Carbios has been collaborating with Indorama Ventures for over a year to assess the commercial and technical feasibility of the technology. The world’s first industrial-scale enzymatic PET recycling plant at Longlaville will have a capacity to process about 50,000 tons of post-consumer PET waste per year, including waste that is not recyclable mechanically, equivalent to 2 billion PET colored bottles or 2.5 billion PET trays.

Neuware ist, seitdem sich die Logistikketten nach Corona in der 2. Jahreshälfte 2022 wieder neu sortiert haben, sehr billig in Europa und verdrängt PET-Recyclate, so der bvse-Fachverband Kunststoffrecycling.

"Die hohe Inflation führt außerdem zu Konsumverzicht bei den Verbrauchern und dadurch leidet die Nachfrage bei den Verpackungsherstellern. Im Ergebnis geraten die Recyclingunternehmen derzeit massiv unter Druck“, beschreibt Dr. Dirk Textor, Vorsitzender des bvse-Fachverband Kunststoffrecycling, die aktuelle Situation.
 
Jüngstes Beispiel für die angespannte Lage ist die Schließung des PET-Recycling-Standorts von Veolia in Rostock. Der Absatz von Flakes und Regranulaten stockt – der dauerhafte, wirtschaftliche Betrieb seiner PET-Recyclinganlage ist für Veolia nicht mehr möglich. Eine Absicherung des Absatzes von recyceltem PET ist in Zusammenarbeit mit der Getränkeindustrie und/oder dem Handel nicht gelungen, hieß es zur Begründung.
 
„Wir sehen das gesamte PET-Recycling in einer Schieflage, weil Abfüller und Inverkehrbringer von PET-Verpackungen ihrer Produktverantwortung nicht nachkommen. Eine mittelfristige Besserung der Situation ist nicht in Sicht. Die PET-Verarbeiter setzen auf Neuware und listen die Recyclate aus“, kritisiert Textor.
 
Dieses Verhalten der PET-Verarbeiter ist nach Auffassung des bvse-Fachverband Kunststoffrecycling „sehr überraschend“, weil Recycling-PET der einzige Kunststoff ist, der bei Verpackungen mit direktem Lebensmittelkontakt eingesetzt werden kann. Das jetzt zu beobachtende Marktverhalten der PET-Verarbeiter, die ausschließlich auf Neuware setzen, sei kurzsichtig und hoch problematisch, heißt es beim bvse. Man dürfe nicht annehmen, dass eine stillgelegte Anlage innerhalb kurzer Zeit wieder hochgefahren werden kann. Anlagen müssen kontinuierlich betrieben werden, um die benötigten Mengen in geeigneten Qualitäten darstellen zu können. Im schlimmsten Fall verschwindet die Anlage sogar ganz vom Markt.
 
„Und damit wird es eng werden, sehr eng, wenn in Kürze die hohen Anforderungen der europäischen Kunststoffstrategie umzusetzen sind. Nicht zuletzt werden bei der Novellierung der europäischen Verpackungsverordnung sehr ambitionierte Recyclateinsatzquoten definiert. Auch deshalb wird es in Europa zu einem Verteilungskampf um Recycling-PET kommen“, so bvse-Fachverbandsvorsitzender Dirk Textor.

• At end 2022, Carbios has 336 titles worldwide divided into 53 patent families for its innovation in enzymatic recycling of PET plastics and fibers, and its PLA biodegradation technology
• Carbios’ team of Intellectual Property experts is dedicated to protecting its innovations

 
Carbios has doubled its number of issued patents since the last review published at the end of 2020. Carbios (and its subsidiary Carbiolice) currently holds 336 titles worldwide divided into 53 patent families.  In 2022, several titles protecting the proprietary PET-degrading enzymes were granted in countries of interest such as the United States and also in Asian countries including Indonesia, South Korea, China, Japan and India.  Carbios has also obtained grants within its patent families protecting the biodegradable plastics production process, notably the masterbatch containing the enzyme or its production process.
 
Carbios is expanding its intellectual property portfolio in regions and countries where there is strong demand for its disruptive technologies, notably :

• in Europe: 40 European titles, which could be granted in the 39 member states of the European Patent Organization
• in North America: 41 titles in the United States and 23 in Canada
• in Asia: 152 titles, including 37 in China, 27 in Japan and 24 in India

Carbios also has 14 patent applications that may be extended to other countries or regions of the world in the coming years.

“Over the past two years, we have mainly focused on strengthening the protection of our PET biorecycling process and its proprietary enzymes,” commented Lise LUCCHESI, Director of Intellectual Property at Carbios. “For the coming years, we will continue to consolidate the protection of this process, and that of our PLA biodegradation process, by filing new patent applications. We will also actively follow up on our filed patent applications in order to obtain granted patents.”
 
“Since the beginning of Carbios, the R&D and Intellectual Property departments have worked hand in hand to ensure maximum protection of our enzymes and processes,” commented Alain Marty, Chief Scientific Officer at Carbios.  “These continued efforts to obtain extensive international protection are crucial to safeguard our innovations and ensure the industrial deployment of our technologies.”