Eastman announces plans for a polyester recycling plant in Tennessee

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Type of post: NEWS.

Eastman Chemical Company has announced plans to build a plastic-to-plastic recycling facility at its site in Kingsport (Tennessee, USA).

Figure 1. Coloured PET bottles (taken from the press release)

Through methanolysis, the new plant will use over 100 ktons of polyester waste that cannot be recycled by current mechanical methods to produce plastics made with recycled content. This process will not only reduce the company's use of fossil feedstocks, but also reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 20-30% relative to fossil feedstocks.

Methanolysis is a process where methanol is combined with PET to promote a chemical reaction that breaks down it to monomers, its basic building blocks. Those monomers are used to create new polymers that are indistinguishable from polymers created from traditional process.

Over the next two years, the company will invest approximately 250 M$ in the facility, which is expected to be mechanically complete by year-end 2022. It will contribute to the company achieving its sustainability commitments for addressing the plastic waste crisis, which includes recycling more than 500 million pounds of plastic waste annually by 2030 via chemical recycling technologies.

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