Japanese chemical producer Mitsubishi Chemical announced plans to construct its first chemical recycling project for post-consumer plastics with Recycling firm Mura Technology and its licensing partner KBR.

The project will be located at Mitsubishi's Ibaraki Plant in Japan, which has a recycling capacity of 20,000 mt of plastic waste per year. Construction is anticipated to be completed in 2023. The project's first goal is to employ post-industrial plastics. With 9 million tonnes of plastic trash generated in Japan each year, MCC plans to expand the project's scope and use these plastics as raw materials.

The announcement follows a licensing deal for the patented HydroPRS process that was reached on June 16 with Mura Technology, a UK-based chemical recycler, and KBR, a US-based engineering firm.

Mura and KBR are presently investigating other projects in Asia, the United States, and Europe to complement the worldwide roll-out of HydroPRS and fulfill Mura's objective of creating one million tonnes of recycling capacity by 2025, in addition to this cooperation with MCC.

The plastics industry is increasingly seeing chemical recycling as a viable option to mechanical recycling since it permits plastic wastes that were previously landfilled or burned to be recycled without being downgraded.

Mitsubishi has stated that it plans to expand the plant's capacity in the future, citing the fact that the HydroPRS technology is "inherently scalable," according to Mura.

Shigeru Handa, Chief Operating Officer, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation's Basic Materials Domain, said that they regard this as an extremely important step forward, and MCC will continue to research and implement solutions toward a circular economy.

CEO of Mura Technology,  Dr. Steve Mahon, said that plastic waste is contaminating our environment at an alarming rate, not to mention the carbon emissions resulting from the usage of fossil fuels to manufacture virgin plastics. Today, we require global, long-term, and scalable solutions. That is why they are embracing an international strategy in order to grow quickly and tackle the issue straight on.