Plastic Pollution a Global Issue that Requires Innovative Solutions Implemented at Local Level

The Longlaville plant is to have a processing capacity of 50,000 tonnes of post-consumer PET waste per year. Are you still looking at the same number, especially given that the legislative backdrop in EU has been developing fast, and therefore the need to handle waste is also gathering momentum? Plus, how does the partnership with Novozymes work? Novozymes is itself a world leader in enzyme production, while Carbios has its LCCICCG enzyme.
Emmanuel Ladent: Carbios’ first commercial plant, and the world’s first biorecycling plant, will have a processing capacity of 50,000 tonnes of post-consumer PET waste per year. However, plastic pollution is a global issue that requires innovative solutions implemented at local level.  Carbios is therefore ready to sell its technology and process through licenses around the world. 

Carbios has extended its international reach to boost its commercial deployment worldwide. Teams are in place in key markets and are dedicated to identifying business opportunities and establishing commercial partnerships for our PET biorecycling technology, with first agreements expected in 2024. To date, Carbios is represented in 3 key regions: Europe, North America (including Canada) and Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and soon India).

Carbios’ licensing documentation is ready for industrial and commercial deployment, and we have an exclusive, long-term strategic partnership with Novonesis (previously known as Novozymes), the world leader in enzyme production, which ensures the supply of PET-degrading enzymes at an industrial scale for our first commercial plant and all future licensed plants.

PET producers and chemical companies are natural potential customers for a technology that allows a true circularity for PET with feedstock issued from plastic waste (rather than petro-sourced), and that is fully compatible with existing polymerization plants.  Indeed, Carbios’ process is compatible with over 95% of existing PET plants around the world. 

By providing value to all possible sources of PET feedstock including complex plastic packaging and textile waste, Carbios also aims to reach out to other players in the value chain such as waste management companies and public entities. The Carbios technology also provides a solution to brand owners to meet growing regulatory requirements as well as their own ambitious sustainability objectives for the inclusion of r-PET in their products and packaging.

Carbios has been working on the LCCICCG enzyme since it was announced in 2020. What have been the improvements since then, and how more can it get better?
Emmanuel Ladent: In October 2023, Carbios published an article in ACS Catalysis, one of the world's most influential scientific journals, comparing the four best performing enzymes for PET degradation under industrial conditions and confirmed the superior performance of Carbios’ enzyme.  Since the publication of the LCCICCG enzyme in the journal Nature in 2020, three years of R&D has optimised its performance to produce a new, more efficient generation of enzyme that will be used in the world's first PET biorecycling plant.

Can you please explain for the ordinary person how the enzymatic process works? How is it better or different from other similar applications?
Emmanuel Ladent: Carbios has developed an enzymatic recycling process that uses an enzyme capable of specifically depolymerizing PET (polyethylene terephthalate) found in various plastic and textiles. Unlike current recycling methods, which have limitations and result in quality loss with each cycle, Carbios' innovation enables the recycling of all types of PET waste, including complex and soiled plastic, while producing recycled and recyclable PET products without compromising quality. Plastic and textile waste is now a precious raw material enabling the circular economy to become an industrial reality.

The process involves purifying the resulting monomers from depolymerization, which can then be re-polymerized into high-quality PET equivalent to virgin PET obtained from the petrochemical industry. This innovation meets strong demand from consumers, public authorities and manufacturers who have made ambitious commitments in terms of sustainable development and eco-design of their packaging and products. This revolutionary technology makes it possible to recover all PET waste, including waste that cannot be recovered using current recycling technologies, such as food trays or textiles.

Then, there is the question of PET itself. The argument is that recycled plastic is after all still plastic. And recycling plastic not only encourages the production of plastic but also keeps plastic in the production cycle. How do you counter that allegation?
Emmanuel Ladent: The latest figures show that we produce 460 million tonnes of plastic in the world today, and according to OECD estimates, by 2060, consumption will have tripled.  The scale of the problem of plastic pollution is such that we must use all possible means available to tackle it. We must get rid of the plastic we don't need and recycle what is essential. In some cases, there is no feasible alternative to plastic for a number of applications and industries due to hygiene, safety and carbon footprint considerations. We must therefore reduce consumption wherever possible, reuse as much as possible before recycling.

Carbios aims to be a leader in the r-PET market by capturing 8-12% share by 2035. What is your understanding of the global market? What size is this going to be by 2025?
Emmanuel Ladent: In a dynamic global PET market, where the share of recycled PET will become increasingly important.  The Carbios ambition is to become a leading r-PET player by 2035. 

Global PET market growth is expected to almost double in 25 years from 101mt in 2025 to 186mt by 2050*, and r-PET could represent 50% of the total PET market by 2050 (according to Carbios’ estimates taking into consideration improved textile collecting and sorting, use of textile feedstock and advanced recycling scale-up).

In 2025, r-PET should represent around 12% of the global PET market.

* Base case outlook based on McKinsey & Company “Accelerating Momentum” scenario, 2023

How would the new/proposed EU laws on waste going to affect you? Does it help you, or does it affect you adversely? But broadly, how do you foresee the legal/legislative landscape (w.r.t waste) changing in the coming years?
Emmanuel Ladent: New regulations are springing up all over the world to tackle the plastic and textile pollution problem at all levels: collection rates, recycling rates, recycled content rates, single-use plastic, waste importation, EPR, and more. They play a positive role in increasing recycling and building a circular economy at a large scale.

In Europe, the SUPD requires every EU country to ensure that PET beverage bottles incorporate at least 25% recycled plastic by 2025. The PPWD – Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive — the cornerstone of European legislation on packaging and packaging waste – will require incorporation of recycled PET up to 30% in packaging in 2030 and put to 65% in 2040. Therefore, Carbios expects to see a rise in demand for r-PET in the packaging and Food & Beverage sectors.

Carbios also expects a rapid growth in the tonnage of plastic and textile waste collected. Collection and sorting is currently a bottleneck in making textile circular at a large scale. Regulations will certainly contribute to remove these bottlenecks and by doing so, foster the development of a sustainable value chain.

Therefore, regulations are critical to help move the industry forward, but brand owners with which Carbios is in communication with are committed to accelerating the transition of the plastic and textile industry toward a circular economy and wish to go beyond industry regulations with their own ambitious sustainability commitments.

A year ago, Carbios signed an agreement with PVH to join its fibre-to-fibre consortium founded along with On, Patagonia, Puma and Salomon. Could you tell us how far this has progressed, and how this is expected to unfold?
Emmanuel Ladent: In 2022, Carbios initiated a co-development partnership to recycle clothing textile waste in order to produce new textile fibres for the apparel industry. Currently, only 1% of fibre is produced from recycled fibres. By enabling closed-loop fibre-to-fibre recycling, Carbios' technology will allow textile brands to reach their sustainability commitments and reduce their reliance on used bottles. On, Patagonia, Puma, PVH Corp. and Salomon collaborate with Carbios in a textile consortium, with a project timeline from July 2022 to June 2024, extendable to December 2024.

We have provided documented information on design for recycling to our partners by evaluating and ranking ease of recovery of PET from different fabrics, we have shown the robustness of the technology to treat a broad range of textile compositions, and finishes.

Major challenges are coming from building a new circular business model: waste collection and sorting, complex textile disassembling and preparation before recycling, and regulatory framework to support material circularity. During the two-year collaboration, Carbios and its partners collaborate to deliver the biological recycling of polyester items at industrial scale, including thorough sorting and dismantling technologies for complex textile waste. 

In October 2023, Carbios inaugurated its textile preparation line at its demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand.  Several representatives of Carbios’ partner brands (On, Salomon and Puma) were present at the inauguration event.  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.