Stories from Wesseling · Germany

BASF has succeeded in reducing the energy consumption of its chemical plastic recycling process by half. The company refined the procedure at a test plant in Italy. Starting in 2030, the company plans to use only renewable energy for plastic recycling at its facility in Wesseling. Chemical recycling is described as a complementary process to mechanical recycling, which is limited to pure plastic types. The process aims to produce 50,000 tons of new polyethylene annually from the plastic waste of a city of one million people. This material will be processed into high-quality plastic packaging for the food and medical industries. The pyrolysis process for chemical recycling results in efficiency losses. For every 100 kilograms of plastic waste input, only 25 to 30 kilograms are converted into new plastic.