Canadian Plastics

Dow, Orrion to build industrial-scale polyurethane recycling plant in France

Canadian Plastics   

Materials Recycling Sustainability

As part of Dow’s Renuva mattress recycling program, the goal is to take discarded mattress foam and turn it back into raw material (polyol) through chemical recycling.

Image Credit: Dow

Dow Polyurethanes, a business division of chemical giant Dow has announced plans to create an industrial-scale recycling facility at Orrion Chemicals Orgaform in Semoy, France, to treat discarded mattress foam to be used in a range of applications.

As part of Dow’s Renuva mattress recycling program, the goal is to take discarded mattress foam and turn it back into raw material (polyol) through chemical recycling, the process of converting waste into feedstock. The new raw material can then be used in flexible or rigid foam products to go into applications such as building insulation boards and even back into new mattresses, Dow said.

This new development builds on Dow’s existing collaboration with process know-how and turnkey installations provider H&S Anlagentechnik, announced in 2017.

“Every year, around 30 million mattresses are thrown away in Europe. If they were all stacked up, the pile would be 678 times the height of Mount Everest,” Dow said in a statement. “This new initiative will help enable a more circular economy for polyurethanes by ensuring the applications they are used in can be recycled, and it can help the EU reach its goal of having 65% of municipal waste recycled by 2030.”

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“Through Renuva our ambition is to address some of the circular economy goals set out in the EU’s Green Deal and in national waste management strategies of countries like France,” said Marcel Moeller, global marketing and sustainability director, Dow Polyurethanes.

The installation is expected to take place during the second half of 2020, with the first batch of Renuva polyols expected to be delivered in the first half of 2021.

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