CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio—ExxonMobil Chemical is moving forward with chemical recycling efforts, but officials note the market still has room for improvement.
"We need better consumer awareness and access to recycling," Michelle Salim said Aug. 27 at the Smithers Advanced Recycling Summit in Cuyahoga Falls. Salim is North America advanced recycling commercial manager for Houston-based ExxonMobil.
"Consumers need to know where and how to recycle," she added.
For its part, ExxonMobil in late 2022 opened a chemical recycling plant in Baytown, Texas, with processing capacity of 80 million pounds of plastic waste per year.
Salim said that the firm plans to add 14 similar plants globally, providing 1 billion pounds of global chemical recycling capacity by 2027. The technology "widens the range of plastic that can be recycled," she added.
Late last year, Cyclyx International, a joint venture between ExxonMobil, Agilyx and LyondellBasell, announced plans for its first advanced recycling facility in Houston. The partners said the project will have annual capacity of almost 300 million pounds of plastic feedstock for chemical and mechanical recycling, with ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell holding offtake rights.
ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell said they are investing $135 million into Cyclyx to fund operating activities and construction costs for the new facility, which is expected to start production in mid-2025.
Salim did not address an Aug. 24 report by CBS News and Inside Climate News that raised questions about the project and the viability of chemical recycling.
The report found that more than a year's worth of collected plastic is in a storage yard. Industry officials said they have been stockpiling plastic ahead of the planned mid-2025 start of Cyclyx's high-tech plastic sorting plant. In the CBS report, Ray Mastroleo, ExxonMobil global market development manager for advanced recycling, said the firm has already processed 60 million pounds of plastic waste through its facility.
Cyclyx says it will process mixed plastic waste, including difficult-to-recycle plastics such as food packaging, sourced from a combination of post-consumer, commercial, and industrial plastic waste.
Salim said Aug. 27 that the HRC now is working with Houston schools and will add nine drop-off recycling centers.
"Feedstock is one of our biggest challenges," she added. "A lot of people have limited access to curbside recycling."
At the recent NPE2024 trade show, ExxonMobil focused on certified-circular polymers that leverage the firm's Exxtend-brand technology for chemical recycling. These materials also incorporate ExxonMobil's performance polymers, which officials said can help boost performance while enabling sustainability benefits.
ExxonMobil Chemical is a major supplier of PE, polypropylene and specialty resins. The business is a unit of global energy giant ExxonMobil Corp.
