France/Grand Est: Near Luxembourg, the “first factory in the world” which recycles the impossible

Biologically recycling plastic food trays which usually end up in the incinerator is now possible: After having developed an innovative technology, the company Carbios is preparing to open “the first factory in the world” of its kind, in the east from France. With its technology, the company says it can recycle products that no one wants. Bottles, trays or old clothes in particular, even of poor quality or dirty, are the most sought after by the company, because most other recycling companies do not process them.

“The quality of the incoming waste does not interest us, we even look for mediocre waste,” explains the general director of Carbios, Emmanuel Ladent, to the press. “With technology like Carbios, we will collect everything that others do not recycle.” This solution will offer these difficult-to-recycle waste a “circular recycling, giving them value and ultimately preventing them from being buried or incinerated”, summarizes the group based in Clermont-Ferrand on the occasion of the laying of the first stone from its factory in Longlaville (Meurthe-et-Moselle).

Few losses

Concretely, an enzyme, created by the company, has the capacity, when mixed in a tank with waste, to separate the different components of the waste and set aside the polyethylene terephthalate (PET). You need about a kilo of enzymes for a ton of PET, explains Mr. Ladent. “After a few hours, we have a liquid coming out”, after the enzyme has made it possible to separate the PET. There then remain filtration and purification stages allowing the manufacture of entirely biorecycled PET, “without compromising its quality”, according to Mr. Ladent.

PET plastics are widely used, but still mainly created from petroleum materials and not from recycling. With this process, for “one ton of waste prepared, we get 90% of material,” explains Mr. Ladent, a figure “among the highest” in the different recycling techniques. The rest comes out “in the form of a cake – these are particles – which will be a very good consumable, it is ideal for example for energy for a cement factory”. The objective, for Mr. Ladent, is now to license this technology and market it worldwide… Starting with the Longlaville factory, just a few kilometers from Luxembourg and Belgium.

A decade of research

PET waste, with ideally “a minimum of plastic bottles and a maximum of waste that is difficult to recycle” according to Mr. Ladent, will be collected within a perimeter of “300 to 500 kilometers” of this border commune, in France, Germany, Belgium or in Luxembourg. Various brands, such as L’Occitane en Provence, L’Oréal, Salomon and Puma, are already partners of Carbios. A sector dedicated to textiles, sometimes composed of polyester, is notably planned, while only 13% of them are currently recycled, according to Carbios.

“The first biorecycling plant in the world will be tricolor”, greeted the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron on the social network LinkedIn on Wednesday, describing the process as a “technological revolution” and the upcoming factory as “French pride”. “A decade” of research was necessary to perfect this recycling technique called “enzymatic depolymerization,” says the company. An initial research and development process was carried out in 2011, to move on to in-condition tests in the laboratory and then industrial demonstrator in Clermont-Ferrand.

Located on 13 hectares of land, the future factory will be able to process 50,000 tonnes of waste per year, which would represent, for example, 300 million T-shirts. Some 150 jobs, direct and induced, will be created. The investment, estimated at 230 million euros in June 2023, is partly financed by the State via France 2030 and the Grand Est region. The plant should be able to operate at full capacity in 2026.