Plastics have become indispensable to modern life. They’ve also become a global waste menace, polluting our waterways, clogging our landfills and contributing to micro-plastic pollution. With plastics production expected to grow by 70% by 2040 – and companies rapidly committing to increased amounts of recycled material in their products – the siren call is clear: 2025 is the year for a circular economy for plastics.
We’re ready for it! Encina’s proprietary advanced recycling technology will allow us to divert end-of-life plastics from landfills and incinerators and convert them directly into drop-in quality ISCC+-certified chemical building blocks, which our customers can reuse to make new products.
It’s a revolution whose time has come. The shift to a world where end-of-life plastics become the building blocks for new products is driven both by consumer preferences for sustainable practices and commitments by businesses across the globe to cut their use of virgin materials in production and develop and use more sustainable practices.
These aren’t the only factors pushing more companies to realize the value of a circular economy. Globally, the regulatory environment also is shifting. Governments are moving toward varying extended producer responsibility policies – making manufacturers responsible for their product lifecycle including disposal and recycling – as well as requiring minimum recycled content in various products.
At the same time, smart technology, AI and robotics are increasing efficiency in trash collection and significantly reducing contamination in recycling operations, increasing the value of recovered materials.
All of these factors create the perfect storm for our industry in 2025. It’s the ideal environment in which to rethink not only our make-it, use-it, throw-it-away society but also to develop new business partnerships built on a circular model.
At Encina, we’ve been busy building those circular solutions and industry relationships to fully realize our commitment to a circular economy for chemicals from where we source our hard-to-recycle plastics to those we supply with our circular feedstock.
To date, we’ve signed a Global Memorandum of Understanding with a global leader in sustainable waste management, to supply feedstock for our circular manufacturing facilities.
We’ve also signed several agreements with three global leaders to propel their environmental sustainability goals. We’re excited for the opportunity to supply them with our circular feedstocks that will allow them to produce more sustainable products that the public and industry use every day.
These agreements and other similar avenues we’re exploring will help propel some of the world’s leading manufacturers to their sustainability goals and help us decarbonize the global chemicals industry. New thinking, new technology, a new promise for the future. It’s all at the heart of our mission to close the loop on plastics in this new year.