Honeywell recently announced that its novel process which expands the scope of plastics which can be recycled and produce feedstock consumed in making recycled plastics with a lower carbon footprint. This new technology has the potential to reduce the need of fossil fuels in the creation of virgin plastics. This process also enables many cycles of recycling and has the goal of enabling a circular economy for the production of plastics.

The UpCycle Process technology uses industry leading conversion at the molecular level, pyrolysis, and contaminants management technology to convert waste plastic back into Honeywell recycled polymer feedstock that undergoes further processing for the production of new plastics. The most important advantage of this process over other thermochemical recycling processes is that it expands the types of plastics that can be recycled which includes waste plastic that would otherwise go unrecycled. The type of plastics include coloured, flexible, multi-layered packaging, and polystyrene.

While being used in conjunction with other chemical and mechanical recycling processes, supported by improvement in collection and sorting, this process has the potential to increase the amount of global plastic waste that can be recycled.

Another advantage of this process is that the recycled plastics produced via this process can result in a 57% reduction of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions as compared to the production of same amount of virgin plastics from fossil fuels. This process also reduces carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 75% as compared to conventional modes of handling plastic waste such as incineration and landfilling.

The demand of plastic recycling is increasing globally due to increased government support for recycled plastics and a circular economy. The demand for plastic recycling stood at around 10 million tonnes in 2020 and is expected to grow at a high CAGR of 10% during the upcoming years.

As per ChemAnalyst, “the proposed commercialization of Honeywell’s UpCycle technology comes at a time when the demand for recycled plastic is growing exponentially in the global polymer market. The thermochemical plastic recycling processes are beneficial as they are cost effective, less polluting, and high yielding processes. With the commercialization of the technology more and more companies will be looking forwards towards using this technology in their polymer recycling plants.