Toyo, SCG enhance waste plastics recycling partnership

Japanese engineering firm Toyo Engineering and Thai petrochemical producer SCG Chemicals plan to enhance their partnership in the chemical recycling of waste plastics, aiming to launch an upgraded demonstration plant in Thailand by early 2025.

The agreement to co-operate on the future commercialisation of the chemical recycling technology of SCG subsidiary Circular Plas (CirPlas) and the development of a licensing business is a follow-up to the companies' initial deal to study the feasibility of chemical recycling in Thailand in January 2022. CirPlas is 60pc owned by SCG and has developed chemical recycling technology turning mixed plastic wastes into naphtha and then plastic resins.

Toyo and SCG plan to add a new unit to the operating pilot plant in south Thailand's Rayong province. The companies are still examining the output capacity of the enhanced pilot plant and future commercial operation. They are unsure when they will start operations of the commercial venture.

The circular economy has been a major topic in Japan's petrochemical industry on the back of the country's 2050 decarbonisation goal. Petrochemical producer Mitsui Chemicals in March began using pyrolysis oil, generated from waste plastics, to manufacture petrochemical products at its Osaka naphtha-fed cracker. Sumitomo Chemical plans to begin recycling polymethyl methacrylate in 2025.

By Nanami Oki