Sacyr & Honeywell Join Forces for Plastic Recycling Facility at Spain

TAGS:  Sustainability / Natural Solutions    

Sacyr forms a joint venture with Honeywell, where both parts will co-own and operate a facility in Andalucía, Spain with a capacity to transform 30,000 metric tons per year of mixed waste plastics into Honeywell recycled polymer feedstock. Production is expected to begin in 2023.

Goal to Achieve Circular Economy

Honeywell’s UpCycle process technology can produce feedstock used to make recycled plastics with a lower carbon footprint. This new technology can reduce the need for fossil fuels in the creation of virgin plastics, with the goal of enabling a circular economy for plastics.

Honeywell’s new UpCycle Process Technology can result in a 57 percent reduction of CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e) emissions compared with the production of the same amount of virgin plastic from fossil feeds.

UpCycle also reduces CO₂e emissions by 77 percent compared with conventional modes of handling waste plastic, such as incineration and landfilling. These CO₂e reductions are some of the largest improvements among all pyrolysis technology offerings.

Partnering with companies that have waste management experience such as Sacyr allows Honeywell to close the loop within the plastics supply chain by bringing the recycling technology onsite to the collection source.

The recycling plants with UpCycle Process Technology employ a modular design, enabling straightforward deployment and installation, striking the right balance between economy of scale and amount of waste plastic generated locally.

More Plastics for Recycling

UpCycle process technology expands the types of plastics that can be recycled to include waste plastic that would otherwise go unrecycled, including colored, flexible, multilayered packaging and polystyrene.

According to a study published by AMI International in September 2020, waste plastics processed through advanced recycling technologies, such as UpCycle Process Technology, could amount to between 5 and 15 million tons of additional plastic waste being recycled per year by 2030.

This technology utilizes Honeywell's molecular conversion, pyrolysis, and contaminants management technology to convert waste plastic back to Honeywell recycled polymer feedstock, which is then used to create new plastics.

“Our partnership with Honeywell will enable Sacyr to bring sustainable, circular solutions to market,” said Domingo Jiménez, manager of Sacyr circular. “The speed with which we can start up plants and the global viability of this solution has the potential to greatly accelerate the impact we can have on the communities we serve, the environment, and society as a whole.”

“Plastics play an important role in our society, including expanding the shelf life of food and making vehicles lighter, which reduces their emissions. Unfortunately, only a fraction of plastics today can be successfully recycled,” said Vimal Kapur, president and chief executive officer of Honeywell performance materials and technologies. “Honeywell’s UpCycle process helps fix this problem. By broadening the types of plastic that can be recycled, UpCycle will revolutionize the plastics economy and play a critical role in improving the sustainability of many of the products we use on a daily basis.”

Source: Sacyr