Sibur to focus on recycling, developing renewable sources of raw material

London — Russian petrochemical producer Sibur is set to continue its focus on the circular economy and plastics recycling commitments going forward, as laid out in its newly approved 2025 Sustainable Development Strategy, the company said Thursday.

Sibur's key 2025 sustainability objective is to increase investment in R&D projects aimed at processing plastic waste and involving renewable sources of raw materials by 50%, according to the company's 2019 results statement.

The plans also includes a specific production target to ensure at least 40% of recycled polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, granule in the total company's PET production. Regarding this, Sibur in 2019 partnered with Norway-based R&D company, Norner, for new product development and polymer recycling at Sibur's newly launched PolyLab centre.

"Ability of the chemical industry to collect plastic waste and recycling it back into the polymer stream remains a challenge for many companies," Sibur chairman Dmitry Konov said.

"However Sibur is committed to invest into technology of recycling. For example, instead of single-use PET bottle, design of new multi-use recycled PET bottles could prove having less carbon footprint", he added.

Sibur said the company has new projects under development in 2020 in the recycling sector, thought it did not share details at this time.

"Customers are looking for change. Materials that are lighter, cheaper and with less CO2 emissions are interesting for the market," Konov said.

Sibur and the Federal Passenger Company in February launched a joint project in which they prepared a pilot batch of recycled plastic cutlery sets for long-haul passenger travel on Russia's national train network.

The project used recycled polyethylene and polypropylene developed at PolyLab centre.