Eastman to Invest $1 Billion in Plastics Recycling Facility in France
Eastman to Invest $1 Billion in Plastics Recycling Facility in France
(Bloomberg) -- Eastman Chemical Co. plans to invest as much as $1 billion to build the world’s biggest molecular-plastics recycling facility in France, helping to cut consumption of fossil fuels -- and boosting President Emmanuel Macron‘s credentials, less than three months before the presidential election.
The facility will start operations in 2025, processing up to 160,000 tons annually of hard-to-recycle plastic waste that’s currently being incinerated, Eastman said in an e-mailed statement Sunday.
Macron on Monday will unveil a total of 21 new investment projects -- including Eastman’s and others by chemical giant BASF SE and Canada’s Loop Industries Inc. -- which his office say represents a total of 4 billion euros ($4.6 billion), during a trip in North East France Monday to boast his track record in wooing foreign investors.
The investment is substantial and shows France’s “willingness to embrace innovative technologies,” Ecology Minister Barbara Pompili said in the statement. France “is giving itself the means to achieve its ambitious plastics recycling targets set for 2025.”
Eastman will use what it calls molecular recycling, where waste is broken down into its building blocks and rebuilt into new forms. Other companies including Ineos Group are looking at advanced plastics recycling. Finland’s Neste Oyj has a target to process 1 million tons of waste plastics a year by 2030.
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