Photo courtesy of Dreamstime
The WhiteCycle project, coordinated by French manufacturing company Michelin, was launched July 1. It aims to develop a circular economy to convert complex materials containing textiles made of plastic into products with high added value, according to Michelin. Co-financed by the Horizon Europe program of the European Commission, this public/private European partnership includes 17 organizations.
The WhiteCycle ambition by 2030 is to foster the annual recycling of more than 2 million tons of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Michelin says this project should make it possible to reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 2 million tons and to avoid the landfilling or incineration of more than 1.8 million tons of plastic each year.
Composite postindustrial materials containing polyester (PET) textiles and other components from tires, hoses and multilayer clothes at the end of the products’ life cycles soon could become recyclable, the company says. That material could go into producing new plastic for tires, hoses and clothes.
Seventeen public and private European organizations are combining their scientific and industrial expertise:
three industrial partners (Michelin, Mandals, Inditex);
two waste management companies (Synergie TLC, Estato);
one intelligent sorting small and medium- sized business (Iris);
one biological recycling small and medium-sized business (Carbios);
one PET plastic processing plant (Kordsa);
one product lifecycle analysis company (i-Point);
six universities, research and technology organizations (Pprime, Universite de Poitiers, DITF, IFTH, Erasme, HVL);
one business cluster (Axelera); and
one project management practice (Dynergie).
The consortium will establish the new processes required for the various steps in the value chain:
sorting technologies that make it possible to considerably increase the plastic content of complex waste streams to better process them;
Sponsored Content
SENNEBOGEN 340G telehandler improves the view in Macon County, NC
An elevated cab is one of several features improving operational efficiency at the Macon County Solid Waste Management agency in North Carolina. When it comes to waste management, efficiency, safety and reliability are priorities driving decisions from day one, according to staff members of the Macon County Solid Waste Management Department in western North Carolina. The agency operates a recycling plant in a facility originally designed to bale incoming materials. More recently, the building has undergone significant transformations centered around one machine: a SENNEBOGEN telehandler (telescopic handler).
a preprocess for recuperated plastic, followed by a recycling process (using an enzyme) that sustainably disintegrates the preprocessed plastic into pure monomers;
repolymerization of the resulting plastic monomers to produce like-new plastic;
and quality verification of the new products made with the plastic resulting from recycled complex waste.
Get curated news on YOUR industry.
Enter your email to receive our newsletters.
Latest from Recycling Today
- ReMA toolkit helps members illustrate the impact of the recycled materials industry
- Nidhi Turakhia to receive ReMA Great Lakes Regional Robin K. Wiener LAKES Award
- Algoma Steel seeks government funding
- Navigate initiates billet trade tracking feature
- Hydrogen skepticism besets steelmaking sector
- Coperion, Herbold bringing plastic recycling technologies to K Show
- Schupan and Sons appoints VP of Human Resources
- Vanden launches catalogue for recycled PET resins, flake
