Total, partners team up on French PS recycling

LONDON (ICIS)–French petrochemicals and energy major Total, building materials firm Saint-Gobain and others are teaming up to help lay the groundwork for an industrial-scale polystyrene (PS) recycling channel in France, they said on Wednesday.

The initiative, which also includes French dairy product manufacturers and Citeo, a non-profit group specialising in recycling, comes in the wake of the French government’s Circular Economy Roadmap and is in line with EU targets on plastic recycling, the companies said.

In France alone, an estimated 110,000 tonnes of PS packaging is put on the market each year.

As part of the initiative, dairy product manufacturers will organise, via Citeo, the separation, sorting and preparation of post-consumer PS from France’s extended household waste sorting programme.

Total will use the sorted and prepared PS in plastics production at its sites in Carling, northeast France, and in Feluy, Belgium.

PS waste from other sources, such as construction, will also be used as feedstock.

“The end product will be expected to meet the same specifications as virgin PS”, Total said.

The company last year tested its PS recycling technology in preliminary industrial trials.

The next objective will now be to validate all the aspects of large-scale production.

“A target has been set of 4,000 tonne of output containing at least 20% recycled PS in 2019”, Total added.