LyondellBasell (LYB), recently received the prestigious “Just Transition Award” during the 2024 edition of Festival of Sustainability for its advanced recycling technology MoReTec. The Italian Alliance for Sustainable Development (ASviS), established to raise awareness of the importance of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, granted the award to LYB to recognize the company’s efforts to contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
"We are deeply honored to have received the Just Transition award in a context related to sustainability and circular economy," said Antonio Mazzucco, Director of the Giulio Natta Research Center at LYB. "We are actively working to move the circular economy forward, and our MoReTec technology represents another step towards the development of scalable, sustainable, and circular technologies."
LYB will build a first-of-its kind commercial-scale advanced recycling plant at its Wesseling, Germany, site, using its proprietary MoReTec technology. This commercial scale advanced recycling plant would convert pre-treated plastic waste into feedstock for new plastic production. The start-up of the MoReTec advanced recycling plant is planned for 2026 with a capacity of 50,000 tonnes per year.
The MoReTec technology converts plastic waste into pyrolysis oil to be used as raw material to produce new plastic materials. It utilizes hard-to-recycle plastic waste, such as multilayer films, or other plastics that would otherwise end up in landfills and/or incinerators, and it is complementary to mechanical recycling.
MoReTec advanced recycling technology has been helped by a semi-industrial scale advanced recycling plant at its Ferrara, Italy, site, which begun operation in August 2020. With this plant's operation, research improved the recycling process's efficiency, identified a commercial catalyst and made further progress in the waste feedstock stream's characterization.
