American Chemistry Council to advance durable plastics’ end of life

The Washington-based American Chemistry Council (ACC) and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, have announced a five-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) to advance end-of-life and circularity solutions for durable automotive plastics. 

“Plastics and polymer composites already play a major role in making vehicles lighter and more fuel-efficient,” says Joshua Baca, vice president of ACC’s Plastics Division. “This partnership builds upon those efficiency gains by helping enable a circular economy for durable plastics in the automotive industry and potentially other industries.”

According to a news release from the ACC, the partnership will involve a pilot-scale separation line that reclaims durable plastic through sorting, separation and advanced recycling. The goal is to make new high-performance plastics for reuse. The two groups will seek to advance designing components for circularity and develop solutions that could also be applied to other durable plastics beyond the automotive industry, like the aerospace and renewable energy industries.

The MOU is one outcome of an October 2020 report, Transitioning Toward a Circular Economy for Automotive Plastics & Polymer Composites, that provides a road map for a circular automotive plastics industry.

“Many of America’s plastic makers have already made notable progress repurposing plastic waste into automotive materials,” Baca says. “They are committed to collaborating with automotive original equipment manufacturers, shredders, recyclers, researchers and government to solve problems that will help the automotive industry, and other durable composite goods, advance end-of-life and circular economy solutions. This MOU will bring that commitment closer to reality for the durable plastics and automotive industries.”