To further strengthen its commitment to sustainable development, Braskem, the largest polyolefins producer in the Americas and leading producer of biopolymers in the world, announces the investment of R130 million dollars in three projects to advance the circular economy, according to SpecialChem.
This includes inauguration of a mechanical recycling plant, the start of construction of Brazil's first advanced recycling plant with technology developed by Valoren and the start of construction of a circular packaging development center.
Around R67 million dollars is invested in building a mechanical recycling plant in Indaiatuba, Sao Paulo, with startup slated for March. The project was made possible by the partnership with Valoren, a company engaged in the development of new technologies and the management of solid waste for its transformation into recycled products.
The expectation is that the region will transform 250 million units of post-consumer packaging made from polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) used in cleaning, personal care, cosmetics, and food products, for example, into 14,000 tons of high-quality resins for reuse as raw materials by the plastics converter industry. The plant is already in the commissioning and assisted pre-operational phase.
One of Braskem's innovative fronts for complementing the closure of the circular economy was the signing of another disruptive project with Valoren for the construction and startup of an advanced recycling unit, also located in the city of Indaiatuba. The unit will chemically transform plastic waste using a pyrolysis process into a certified circular raw material for use in making resins or chemical inputs.
The new unit, which was made possible by a joint investment of RD44 million and will start-up in the first quarter of 2023, will have an annual production capacity of 6,000 tons of circular products.
"After six years of research and development into innovative new technologies in the pyrolysis of plastic waste, we are very satisfied to be partnering once again with Braskem, which further confirms our joint commitment to the circular economy,” said Heinz-Peter Elstrodt, partner and chairman of Valoren.
By mid-2022, Braskem expects to inaugurate Cazoolo, its circular economy packaging development center located in the West zone of Sao Paulo city, for an investment of R20 million dollars.
The initiatives, which jointly will require an investment of over R130 million dollars, are directly related to the targets that Braskem has undertaken for the coming years.
In its efforts to eliminate plastic waste, Braskem will expand its production portfolio to include, by 2025, 300, 000 tons of thermoplastic resins and chemical products with recycled content, and by 2030, 1 million tons of such products. Also by 2030, it aims to eliminate 1.5 million tons of plastic waste from being sent to incineration, landfills, or disposal in the environment.
As MRC informed previously, in February 2022, Braskem S.A. announced its investment in Nexus Circular LLC. Using a proprietary advanced recycling technology, Nexus converts a range of hard-to-recycle plastics especially landfill bound plastic films into its circular feedstocks which can then be converted back into virgin plastics (fully circular).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,487,450 tonnes in 2021, up by 13% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 1,494.280 tonnes, up by 21% year on year. Deliveries of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whreas.shipments of PP random copolymers decreased significantly.
Braskem S.A. produces petrochemicals and generates electricity. The Company produces ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, xylenes, butadiene, butene, isoprene, dicyclopentediene, MTBE, caprolactam, ammonium sulfate, cyclohexene, polyethylene theraphtalat, polyethylene, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
MRC