Carbios, a pioneer in the development and industrialization of biological technologies to reinvent the life cycle of plastic and textiles, announces that it has been granted the building permit and operating authorization for the world's first PET1 biorecycling plant, allowing construction to start.

The plant will be built on a 13.7-hectare site acquired by Carbios on Indorama Ventures' existing PET plant site without suspensive conditions. The land area gives the possibility to double the facility's capacity.

This state-of-the-art facility, scheduled for commissioning in 2025, will play a crucial role in the fight against plastic pollution by providing an industrial-scale enzymatic recycling solution for PET waste. Carbios' technology enables PET circularity and offers an alternative raw material to virgin fossil-based monomers, allowing PET producers, chemical companies, waste management firms, public entities, and brands to have an effective solution to meet regulatory requirements and fulfill their sustainability commitments.

The plant will have a processing capacity of 50,000 tons of post-consumer PET waste per year and will generate 150 direct and indirect jobs in the region.

Emmanuel Ladent, CEO of Carbios: "Everything is now in place so that construction of our plant can officially begin! We obtained the permits in line with the announced schedule, and we are eager to deliver a facility of great local and international significance for a circular economy of plastic. We would like to thank the French State and the Municipality of Longlaville for their support throughout the administrative procedure and for their commitment in issuing the operating and building permits in 10 months."

Lionel Arras, Director of Industrial Development: "I am very proud of the Carbios teams who have reached this critical milestone in this significant project. With more than 80 engineers involved, both internally and externally, it is a tremendous team effort with our goal of commissioning in 2025 on track."

The plant is designed to maximize circularity, with high-quality output products, and minimize its environmental footprint, especially with regards to energy consumption. Optimizations are underway to further increase the recycling of water required for the process.

Carbios and Indorama Ventures will collaborate to ensure the feedstock supply of the Longlaville plant, located in a geographical area where the supply potential could reach 400,000 tons in 2023, and up to 500,000 tons in 2030 with improved selective collection.

Carbios has already secured an initial supply source by winning part of the CITEO tender for the biorecycling of multilayer food trays. The consortium composed of Carbios, Wellman (a subsidiary of Indorama Ventures), and Valorplast has been selected to handle 30% of the tonnage proposed by CITEO. Carbios will handle the portion of the flow consisting of multilayer food trays at its Longlaville plant starting in 2025.