Ineos Styrolution puts up cash for polystyrene advanced recycling pilot plant

In a joint collaboration with Recycling Technologies, UK, Europe’s first advanced chemical polystyrene recycling facility is expected to be operational, in Swindon, in the second half of 2022.

The decision is a significant step forward launching polystyrene recycling through depolymerisation technology. Depolymerisation converts polystyrene waste feedstock back into its main building block, styrene, which can then be used to manufacture new polystyrene with identical properties to the virgin material. An additional benefit of depolymerisation is a significant decrease of greenhouse gas emissions when compared with the production of virgin polystyrene from naphtha.

The Swindon pilot plant will be based on Recycling Technologies’ fluidised bed reactor technology.