Facebook-owner supports PET recycler
Meta has announced it will be purchasing environmental attribute certificates (EACs) connected to polyester and PET recycling at a future MacroCycle factory. A system similar to mass balance, this mechanism allows the online giant to offset emissions related to plastic use in its activities.
MacroCycle Technologies has announced plans for a first facility that will be located in the southeast and is anticipated to produce 5,000 tonnes of recycled PET annually. The Boston based company’s SolvoGenesis platform is said to dissolve and purify PET while preserving the polymer chain. The company says that instead of depolymerising PET, its method “takes a shortcut by synthesising cyclic macromolecules (or ‘macrocycles’)”. This approach is said to consume 80% less energy than traditional recycling methods, making it more financially feasible, as company co-founder and CEO Stwart Peña Feliz told the MIT Technology Review earlier this year.
At Meta, Devon Lake, Head of Net Zero Strategy said: “We have been working to address emissions across our supply chain on materials like cement and steel, and our early procurement of materials from these sectors helped pave the way for the maturing markets we see now. We hope this transaction with MacroCycle will have a similar outcome in the plastics market.”
