Realising low energy recycling for different polyester product waste streams is a major step towards a fully circular polyester chain. The partnership kicks-off with a pilot plant, to prove the technical and financial sustainability of a new technology for polyester recycling. The CuRe pilot line should be operational this summer. Existing polyester recycling techniques require a relatively clean waste stream of clear or light blue polyester bottles. For that reason colored polyesters or mixed polyesters (i.e. carpet, textile and food packaging) often lack the economic feasibility for recycling, and still end up at landfill or incineration. CuRe is a pilot plant that enables a continuous polyester recycling process for post consumer and post industry polyester waste streams – including packaging materials and textile products – and cleans the original plastic material from contaminants and color.

CuRe has been launched by Cumapol, DSM-Niaga and Morssinkhof. The goal is to recycle used polyester waste streams in polyester suitable for high demanding applications like carpets, textile and food packaging.

According to Kelly Hall, Managing Director of DSM-Niaga said that, “This partnership fits our strategy to take responsibility beyond the product design for recyclability.” Also, “DSM-Niaga is dedicated to contributing in key technology developments that further enhances the opportunities of local polyester recycling on a global scale.”

Other partners working together with CuRe: two Universities of Applied Science (NHL Stenden and Windesheim) and DuFor Polyester specialties.

The CuRe Polyester Recycling Technology allows to treat any type of used polyester, remove the color and turn it back into clear pellets with the same properties as virgin. Used polyester recycled with the CuRe technology is food grade, and therefore it can be applied again in any typical polyester application.

Mark Ruesink, innovation Director of Morssinkhof Plastics said that, “The optimum utilisation of raw materials is an increasingly large challenge being faced by today’s society”, Also, “We are proud to announce that additional to our already successful Mopet® process we now take our next step with CuRe. This will allow us to reduce the polyester waste mountain even more than today possible.”

Marco Brons, Technical director of Cumapol “We are very excited to have other companies invest in our expertise and co-develop the future of polyester upcycling. Since the plant will be installed in the Cumapol premises in Emmen, we will increase our capacity by another 25 kilotons. With that we also want to prove to the world the possibilities of large scale production of our CuRe technology.”