ExxonMobil believes advanced recycling is a necessary complement to mechanical recycling to help reduce plastic waste in the environment. Simply put, advanced recycling can:
- Convert difficult-to-recycle plastics back into virgin quality raw materials that can be used to make new products
- Enable a broader range of plastic products to be recycled
- Increase the number of times a plastic material can be recycled without degrading
ExxonMobil plans to build a large-scale advanced recycling facility at its Baytown, Texas complex, which will be among the largest plastic recycling facilities in North America. A smaller, temporary facility is already operational and will produce commercial volumes of certified circular polymers by the end of this year to meet growing demand. To date, initial trials have successfully processed more than 1,000 metric tons of plastic waste – the equivalent of 200 million grocery bags.
Over the next five years, ExxonMobil is developing plans to build approximately 500,000 metric tons of advanced recycling capacity globally. In Europe, the company is collaborating with Plastic Energy on an advanced recycling plant in Notre Dame de Gravenchon, France, which is expected to start up in 2023. The company is also assessing sites in the Netherlands, the U.S. Gulf Coast, Canada, and Singapore.