Total Corbion says offering chemical-based recycling solution for its PLA bottles

Total Corbion, a joint venture between TotalEnergies and Corbion, said Dec. 1 that it has the capability to offer chemically recycled polylactic acid to market, following work with Korean bottled water company Sansu.

Speaking at the European Bioplastics Conference, Total Corbion showcased an example of how its polylactic acid bottles could be collected, chemically recycled and reused.

"It is much more carbon efficient and energy efficient to chemically recycle PLA than conventional polymers." said Derek Atkinson, vice president-global sales and business development of Total Corbion.

Atkinson said the carbon efficiency for PLA waste to become fresh PLA is 95% against only 50% for polypropene. For the same target of producing renewable polymers with 30% recycled content, a PLA plant would need 31.58% of their plant production to be collected, sorted and returned while that for a PP plant is almost a double at 60%, he said.

The hydrolysis process could chemically recycle PLA at only under 0.2 GJ energy per ton, compared with conventional PP which would require pyrolysis of 1.5-2 GJ energy per ton to carry out the chemical recycling process, Atkinson said. Therefore, PLA is a much more energy efficient option in the chemical recycling route.

Total Corbion has been working with Sansu, whose product is sold via mail order so empty PLA bottles could be collected when fresh bottles are delivered, Atkinson said. These bottles are returned to the factory and processed into flakes and will be sent to Total Corbion's Thailand facility to be reprocessed and repolymerized into R-PLA. The R-PLA would then be sold back to Sansu, completing the product recycling loop. Atkinson also explained that because the PLA is being chemically recycled, its food contact nature is retained during the process.

Governments around the world are introducing minimum recycled plastic content legislations as a measure to tackle plastic waste pollution. For conventional polymers, this has created an imbalance between supply and demand, which has led to sharp rises in the prices of recycled polymers in 2021, according to S&P Global Platts data.

As a result of rising prices and lack of availability, retailers and brand owners have been keen to look for alternative products which could allow them to fulfill their sustainability commitments.