(Credit: Revalyu)Revalyu Resources (revalyu), a leading chemical PET recycling company, has announced that it will invest $50 million during the initial phase expansion at its first facility in the US. Statesboro, Georgia will be home to the 43-acre facility. Groundbreaking will take place in the first half of 2023, and the commissioning of the facility is planned for 2024. When the first phase is completed, the plant will be able to recycle and process over 225,000 pounds per day of used PET (polyester) waste into sustainable PET polymers (esters) and rPET chips. As the plant expands operations it will have a capacity of recycling and processing up to 450,000 pounds per day.
Using chemical recycling technology, Revalyu has already recycled over six billion bottles and the cost-effective recycling process extracts impurities efficiently while delivering recycled PET of the highest purity. The process uses 91% less energy and 67% less water than conventional polyester processes.
Customer applications have shown that the quality of recycled PET from plastic bottles is equivalent to that of virgin PET and can be used as a direct replacement. Once converted into high-quality recycled PET, Revalyu’s rPET chips can be used to produce sustainable PET products. Currently, PET is widely used in the textile industry for applications such as seamless knitting, weaving, denim, automotive, furniture, or technical textiles.
“The recycling process is unique and delivers the world’s cleanest, highest quality, and most sustainable polyester products to our customers. We have commercialized a breakthrough and environmentally sustainable technology and Revalyu will become the leading global brand for recycled polyester. We continue to seek strong partners globally who wish to work with us on the global rollout of this technology”, stated Dr. Vivek Tandon, Founder of Revalyu.
In 2020, a report found that the global market for recycled PET is expected to almost double between 2019 and 2029, reaching $4.7 billion.
Future Market Insights looked at historical demand for this particular form of recycled plastic from 2014–2018 and in order to forecast statistics for 2019–2029. The increase is likely to be driven by stricter regulations and sustainable packaging initiatives, according to market researchers.
Major beverage companies have already begun focusing on increasing their use of recycled plastic in packaging. In 2019, the Coca-Cola Company water brand Dasani committed to making bottles and cans with an average of 50% recycled material by 2030. Keurig Dr. Pepper has also transitioned its bottles to 100% recycled plastic; the company says the move to transition its Snapple and Core brands to rPET bottles will eliminate more than 46 million pounds of virgin plastic used by the company annually.
