CHINA – Carbios, a France-based company specializing in biological technologies to recycle plastic and textiles, has signed a joint letter of intent with China-based polyethylene terephthalate (PET) producer Zhink Group to build a biorecycling plant in China.
This plant will utilize Carbios’ enzymatic depolymerization technology to serve the global market.
The agreement formalizes the collaboration toward a long-term partnership, including a first licensing contract to build a plant with a minimum annual processing capacity of 50,000 tons of prepared PET scrap. This initiative aims to accelerate a circular economy for plastic and textiles.
“There is great momentum in China to accelerate the circular economy and meet its carbon neutrality target by 2060,” Carbios CEO Emmanuel Ladent said in a news release.
“The technology developed by Carbios is capable of recycling all types of PET waste, promoting a circular economy with high-quality products and significantly reducing industries’ carbon footprint.
“As a leader in PET production, Zhink is a key partner in introducing our technology into China, which will stimulate our international deployment.”
China is the world’s largest PET producer, making 67 million tonnes annually, which accounts for 61 percent of global production.
With the increasing regional and global demand for recycled PET (rPET), Carbios sees China as having the potential to lead in rPET production.
In 2021, 58 percent of the world’s rPET was consumed in Asia, with 38 percent in China, underscoring the region’s importance as both a producer and consumer of the resin.
China is also a key transformer of PET into resins and fibers used in numerous applications in the packaging and textile industries, notably transforming 78 percent of all PET fibers worldwide.
Zhink Group’s strategic focus is developing the global PET and textile industries while maintaining sustainable competitiveness. Based in Hangzhou, China, the firm produces 3 million tonnes of PET annually, serving both domestic and global markets.
Carbios has developed a technology that enables efficient and solvent-free recycling of PET plastic and textile scrap into virgin-like products.
The initial agreement between the two firms would allow Zhink to increase its rPET capacities and meet its sustainable competitiveness goals by offering rPET from enzymatic recycling.
This solution can process all types of PET scrap, including hard-to-recycle items such as opaque and colored bottles, multilayer food trays, and textile scrap while reducing CO2 emissions by 57 percent compared to virgin PET production.
“For Zhink, the strategic focus is on developing the PET and textile industries and becoming a leader in sustainability,” said Zhink Group President Zhu Guoyang.
“We are actively promoting our subsidiaries to develop our PET recycling portfolio and are very interested in Carbios’ revolutionary biorecycling technology to reduce carbon emissions.”
This agreement marks a significant step for Carbios in deploying its technology worldwide and rolling out its licensing model, helping it become a leading PET recycling technology provider by 2035.
The Asia-based plant, licensed by Zhink, will complement an industrial-scale enzymatic PET recycling plant currently under construction in Longlaville, France.
Opening official discussions with Zhink for a licensing agreement marks an important milestone in Carbios’ market entry into China.
Carbios notes that since its inception, all patent families have included one or more titles in China.
For its PET biorecycling technology, Carbios currently holds 28 titles in China covering both the industrial process and the enzymes used, including variants for the industrial process.
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