By using Carbios’ enzymatic PET recycling technology, each consortium company has manufactured sample bottles for their products
Closing the loop for recycling PET plastic. Photo: (Jérôme Pallé/ Business Wire)
A consortium, including Carbios, L’Oréal, Nestlé Waters, PepsiCo and Suntory Beverage & Food Europe, has manufactured the world’s first enzymatically recycled bottles.
By using Carbios’ enzymatic PET recycling technology, each consortium company has produced sample bottles for their products such as Biotherm, Perrier, Pepsi Max and Orangina.
Carbios, a green biotech company, had conducted research and development activities for around 10 years to design a new process and supercharge an enzyme naturally occurring in compost heaps, which normally breaks down leaf membranes of dead plants.
By adapting the enzyme, Carbios has advanced the technology and enhanced this enzyme to break down any kind of PET plastic into its building blocks that can then be transformed back into new and virgin-quality plastic.
Carbios’ patented enzymatic PET recycling process will help recycle a range of PET plastics into the virgin quality and food-grade rPET.
The advanced technology has the potential to break down 97% of plastic within 16 hours.
Carbios aims to break ground on a demonstration plant in September this year. It will be used before launching a 40,000 tonnes capacity industrial facility by 2025.
Carbios CEO Jean Claude Lumaret said: “In a world first, we have created food-grade clear bottles from enzymatically recycled coloured and complex plastic with identical properties to virgin PET, and in partnership with the Consortium, we have proved the viability of the technology with the world’s leading brands.
“This is a truly transformational innovation that could finally fully close the loop on PET plastic supply globally, so that it never becomes waste.”
Enzymatic recycling is believed to address the issue of degradation in conventional recycling and suitable for use on any type of PET plastic.
Carbios will also licence its technology to PET manufacturers across the world to boost the adoption of enzymatic recycling for all kinds of PET-based products.