Biorecycling summit looks at plastic circularity

Carbios, a PET recycling innovator, hosted the world’s first PET Biorecycling Summit December 7 and 8, 2022, in Paris.

The event attracted over 100 international participants from the scientific, academic, and industrial worlds to exchange on the advances in the field of biological recycling, and how to bring these innovations for a circular economy to market.

The two-day conference gathered world-renowned scientists from various academic institutions to share their latest research on PET enzymatic depolymerization. Scientific researchers from 10 countries, including North America, UK, Japan and Germany came to speak and listen. Speakers from strategic partnerships, L’Oréal, Salomon, and McKinsey also took the stage.

Bertrand Piccard, Initiator and Chairman of the Solar Impulse Foundation, joined as the keynote speaker for the last session focused on PET circularity, and praised Carbios for its contribution to reducing plastic pollution.

“Reducing plastic waste is one of the major challenges of our times. Carbios’ technology for the biological recycling of plastics was one of the first innovations labeled “Efficient Solution” by the Solar Impulse Foundation back in 2019,” Piccard said.

“Carbios has my continued support and I commend today’s initiative to gather key stakeholders in the fight to protect the environment.”

The Summit concluded with a visit to the Carbios demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand. The demonstration plant was inaugurated in September 2021 and brings Carbios’s technology one step closer to industrialization.

Carbios is on track to build and operate the world’s first industrial-scale enzymatic PET recycling plant (with a processing capacity of 50,000 tons of PET waste per year) in France (Longlaville) by 2025, and to start licensing its technology throughout the world.