Each Consortium company has successfully manufactured sample bottles – based on Carbios’ enzymatic PET recycling technology
The promise of endlessly recycled PET plastic is one step closer, as the Consortium – Carbios, L’Oréal, Nestlé Waters, PepsiCo and Suntory Beverage & Food Europe – announces the successful production of the world’s first food-grade PET plastic bottles produced entirely from enzymatically recycled plastic.
Each Consortium company has successfully manufactured sample bottles – based on Carbios’ enzymatic PET recycling technology – for some of their leading products including: Biotherm, Perrier, Pepsi Max and Orangina.
By adapting this enzyme, Carbios has fine-tuned the technology and optimised this enzyme to break down any kind of PET plastic (regardless of color or complexity) into its building blocks, which can then be turned back into like-new, virgin-quality plastic.
Carbios’ patented enzymatic PET recycling process enables a wide variety of PET plastics to be recycled into virgin quality, food-grade rPET. PET plastics that would otherwise go to waste or be incinerated, can now be brought back into a continuous circular system of recycling. And this can be achieved at high speed – breaking down 97 per cent of plastic in just 16 hours – 10,000 times more efficient than any biological plastic recycling trial to date.
Together, these brands will work to scale this innovation to help meet the global demand for sustainable packaging solutions.
Enzymatic recycling overcomes the issue of degradation in conventional recycling and can be used on any type of PET plastic. Because Carbios’ recycling process works under mild conditions, it also lowers the carbon footprint of PET waste treatment by saving 30 per cent of CO2 emissions compared to a conventional end-of-life mix of incineration and landfill, taking virgin PET production substitution into account.
Carbios will license its technology to PET manufacturers worldwide, accelerating the global adoption of enzymatic recycling for all kinds of PET based products.