Finland’s Neste eyes waste plastics as feedstock for fuels and plastics

LONDON (ICIS)–Neste is looking for partners to work on projects that use waste plastics as raw material for refining and petrochemicals production, converting the plastics into end products such as fuels, chemicals, and new plastics, the Finnish refining and renewable fuels major said on Wednesday.

Neste aims to proceed to industrial scale trial during 2019. Longer-term, it targets to process more than 1m tonnes/year of waste plastic by 2030.

The company wants to be “a leader” in low-carbon refining and support the circular economy by developing innovative solutions based on waste plastic, said Matti Lehmus, executive vice president of Neste’s oil products business area.

Reaching industrial-scale production of products from plastic waste still requires development of technologies and value chains, he said.

To accelerate development, Neste is looking for partners across the value chain, for example in waste management and upgrading technologies.

“The circular economy is built upon joint efforts,” said Lehmus.

“We wish to partner with leading companies throughout the value chain, who share our sustainability values and ambition, and are ready to move forward with us,” he added.

In Europe, some 27m tonnes of post-consumer plastic waste is generated annually but only about one-third of this is currently collected for recycling, according to the company.

Neste also said that it and partner IKEA are set to begin this autumn production of polypropylene (PP) plastic from fossil-free, bio-based raw materials, marking “the first time in the world that bio-based PP is produced at a commercial scale”.