Borealis becomes a leading global supplier of recycled chemicals

Borealis has signed an agreement with Renasci Oostende Recycling NV to acquire the entire chemically recycled feedstock output from its high-tech recycling centre in Oostende, Belgium. With the projected 20kT output/year delivered to Borealis, this agreement will enable Borealis to become one of the leading global suppliers of chemically recycled base chemicals and polyolefins. The portfolio of products enable the transformation of plastic waste into circular high-performance products and applications.

Agreement helps fulfil market demand for chemically recycled polyolefins
As a complement to mechanical recycling, chemical recycling has an important role to play in closing the material loop on plastics circularity. This is because plastic waste streams of lower quality can be recycled chemically into high-quality material. In fact, products manufactured with chemically recycled feedstock, offer the same performance levels as products produced with fossil-based feedstock. This allows for the production of high-end polyolefin-based applications, including healthcare and food packaging materials subject to stringent quality and safety regulations that cannot always be met using mechanically recycled materials.

Derived mainly from dried household waste and some industrial waste
The waste feedstock processed at Renasci’s ISCC PLUS-certified recycling centre is derived from mainly dried household waste and some industrial waste.

In a first step, the waste is sorted multiple times to extract the best value plastic material for mechanical recycling. The waste feedstock which cannot be mechanically recycled is then chemically recycled; this chemically-recycled feedstock will be subsequently processed in the Borealis steam crackers, initially at its production location in Porvoo, Finland. The Borealis Porvoo location’s – the global standard for certified recycled and bio-based materials – enables mass balance production of renewable and chemically recycled products.

 

Read the original press release here.