ExxonMobil starts new 80 million lb/year advanced recycling plant in Texas

US-based ExxonMobil has started up its new advanced recycling facility in Baytown, Texas, the company announced Dec. 14.

The advanced recycling facility is among the largest in the US, with capacity to process more than 80 million lb/year (36,288 mt/year) of plastic waste, breaking down hard-to-recycle plastics into raw materials to create new products, ExxonMobil said. Plastics that are difficult to recycle include artificial turf, baby bottles, cups, condiment bottles, yogurt cups and plastic cutlery.

Some packaging is difficult to recycle via mechanical processing, in which post-consumer waste including plastic milk jugs, beverage bottles, cardboard boxes is sorted and baled for processing downstream.

For example, a potato chip bag may have a plastic outer layer and an aluminum inner layer, making it unsuitable for mechanical recycling.

The ExxonMobil advanced recycling process feeds sorted and shredded plastic waste into a conversion unit, mixes it with other hydrocarbon liquids, and then uses heat to break down the mixture into molecular building blocks. The resulting molecules are then combined with other feed streams to make a variety of products.

According to a Sphera carbon footprint assessment of feedstock, every 1,000 tons of waste plastic processed via ExxonMobil's advanced recycling technology results in at least 19% lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to processing the same amount of fossil-based feedstocks.

Since the start of pilot operations in 2021, the facility has recycled nearly 15 million lb of plastic waste, ExxonMobil said, and in February 2022 sold its first commercial volumes of certified circular polymers to packaging manufacturer Berry Global.

All recycling, whether chemical or mechanical, faces the issue of procuring sufficient feedstocks.

In 2020, the US recovered 27.2% of all post-consumer plastic bottles and 20.5% of plastic film, according to the most recent Post-Consumer Plastic Recycling Data, presented by the Association of Plastic Recyclers. Although the pandemic affected collection rates during that time, the pre-2020 figures for plastic bottles were still below 30%.

That same year, ExxonMobil helped form Cyclyx International LLC, a consortium that is investing in a first-of-its-kind plastic waste processing facility in Houston to help supply the Baytown facility.

"We are collaborating with government, industry and communities to scale up the collection and sorting of plastic waste that will improve recycling rates and help our customers around the world meet their sustainability goals," said Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil Product Solutions Company.

In early December, the City of Houston and Cyclyx International launched the "10 to 90" takeback program to expand acceptable materials for recycling.

The program, in the Houston suburb of Kingwood, Texas, includes nearly all plastics – including polyethylene terephthalate, polyethylene and polypropylene -- and has collected 3,900 lb of plastic waste since starting Dec. 10, according to a news release.

ExxonMobil is also a member of the Houston Recycling Collaboration, in addition to LyondellBasell, Cyclyx, FCC Environmental Services and the City of Houston.

ExxonMobil plans to build advanced recycling facilities at other manufacturing sites around the world, and is assessing facilities in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Beaumont, Texas; and Joliet, Illinois in the US; and sites in Belgium, the Netherlands, Singapore and Canada, executives said.

By year-end 2026, the company aims to have annual global capacity to process of up to 1 billion lb (453,600 mt) of plastic waste.

Amcor signs five-year deal

In early December, Zurich-based packaging producer Amcor signed a five-year deal to buy certified-circular polyethylene from ExxonMobil, to be made at the Baytown site using feedstocks from advanced recycling technology.

Amcor has a 2030 target of 30% recycled material across its portfolio, and will increase the volume of recycled content incrementally each year to an expected 100,000 mt/year at the end of the five-year period, according to a news release Dec. 5.