Global chemical company announces the establishment of plastic waste disposal research center

The seven members of the Low Carbon Emissions Technology Initiative (LCET), BASF, Covestro, Dow, Mitsubishi Chemical, SABIC, Solvay, and LyondellBasell, have signed an agreement with independent research organization TNO to establish a research center in the Netherlands.

The center's activities, hosted by TNO, focus on developing sustainable, low-carbon plastic waste reprocessing. Sabic said the first projects will focus on improving plastic waste sorting, using new ideas to detect different types of polymers and contaminants in the feed stream, and improving the separation of plastics from fibers, fillers, and other inorganic chemical substances.

The companies involved hope the research can help remove some of the technical barriers to improving access to recycled materials by improving quality, reducing chemical pollution, and improving supply consistency.

The establishment of the research center is the first project of the LCET initiative, which was established in 2019 to accelerate the development and scale-up of low-carbon emission technologies for chemical production. The initiative sets a goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.