RCA Presents One-of-a-Kind Webinar on Chemical Recycling
In October the Government of Alberta announced plans to advance its Natural Gas Strategy including plans to advance a circular plastics economy. To meet these goals to become the Western North America centre of execellence, the industry will have to implement a variety of tools using the latest technology innovation with government supporting smart policies to incentivize and foster this growth. As co-chair of the Plastics Alliance of Alberta, the RCA is leading the charge on these changes; bringing new ideas to tackle old problems of plastics management.
As part of this leadership, on November 17 the RCA welcomed innovative companies from around the world to talk about chemical recycling solutions. Chemical recycling, differs from traditional mechanical recycling in its ability to break plastics back down to their building blocks, or monomers as opposed to just mechanically shredding and reforming polymers into new items. Scientific breakthroughs in the field have demonstrated the ability to process materials in ways we never imagined, thereby creating unique demand and new value chains for recycled plastic monomers.
The webinar featured Closed Loop Partners, a leader in research, testing and development of solutions to build a circular economy for plastics. One research papers they produced identified companies in the space and key barriers to next steps to advance the opportunities for the sector. Paual Luu touched on the need for a policy framework and collaboration across the value chain to integrate the technologies. As Paula stated, “technologies don’t determine circularity, stakeholders do.”
The second presenter was Jocelyn Doucet, the CEO and founder of Pyrowave based in Quebec. Pyrowave uses microwaves to regenerate polystyrene back into its building blocks; commercial grade styrene monomers that can be used to manufacture the same products or new items. Pyrowave has customers in the packaging, building, transportation and electronics sectors. The company sees growing opportunities to turn low-value waste into high value products all while supporting the growth of a low carbon industry.
Another innovative presenter was Martin Stephen, the deputy CEO of CARBIOS. Based in France, CARBIOS is using enzymes to biodegrade plastics for infinite recycling. They focus on plastics and fibres made from PET-based polymers. The company has partnerships with major brands such as L’Oreal, Nestle and Pepsico to transform their plastic recycling into polymers for use in the production of new material.
The final speaker of the session, David Lynch from Enerkem, identified the company’s work to transform waste into biofuels around the world but also at their Edmonton facility. Enerkem looks to change the way non-recyclable materials are managed and addresses a large economic market for taking action.
All presenters shared in dialogue after the session to talk about key hurdles for the technology, how to address environmental concerns and next steps for multiple stakeholders to advance the opportunities for chemical recycling.
Recordings of this and the past RCA webinars are available to registrants. You can still register to access these webinars at: https://recycle.ab.ca/workshop/rcas-2020-webinar-series/. Presentations and speaker info is also available on this page. We are also releasing podcasts from the webinar series. For the latest RCA podcasts, On the Cusp:Alberta’s Circular Podcast visit Apple podcasts, the Google App or visit: https://recycle.ab.ca/resources/podcast/
