How ECO2 Plastics Turns Our Idea of “Washing” on its Head

Although recycling plastics contributes a great deal to the effort to reduce waste and dependence on landfilling, and must become standard practice by society in general (we’re not there yet), the process does have one big downside, and that is water use.  What many people may not realize is that the recycling of plastic requires vast amounts of water for cleaning and other processes, amounting to billions of gallons every year.  With this challenge in mind, not to mention the increasingly strict water use policies in place in the State of California, Gary De Laurentiis, a world-renowned plastics recycling industry expert, founded ECO2 Plastics, and in turn, began to utilize an industry-changing process.

Referring to the process as “eco.logical.recycling”, the San Francisco-based company, along with Honeywell, has developed a method by which to clean plastic PET bottles using an FDA-approved biosolvent at a stage when typical plants use a great deal of water.  The solvent is then distilled to remove sugars and glues, and sequestered for ongoing reuse, at the same time that carbon vapors captured from power plants (an additional benefit of the process) are then converted into liquid CO2 form, which serves as the “bath” in the final stages of the process.  Once the FDA approves the resulting recycled plastic as food safe, the company will then be able to offer it for reuse in beverage containers.  Although ECO2 currently only utilizes PET, which is the most consumes plastic in the U.S. by volume, the company may soon work with HDPE bottles as well as ASR (auto shredder residue) from the auto industry, which will help reduce waste even further.  According to CEO Rod Rougelot, ECO2’s Riverbank, California plant will be joined by another plant to go online within a year, and the company hopes to introduce its waterless process to countries such as India and others, which have water crises even more dire than those in California.

ECO2 Plastics