TotalEnergies plastic recycling plant is first for France

Oil and gas major TotalEnergies recently launched France’s first advanced plastics recycling facility.

Based in Southeast Paris’ Grandpuits, the plant will have a capacity of 15,000 tons per annum and see the transformation of a historic refinery into a crude-oil-free business model.

The site’s purpose is to use chemical recycling to produce synthetic oil from plastic waste.

The project is strongly aligned with TotalEnergies’ ongoing strategy to decrease dependency on fossil-based materials and take steps toward solutions founded on a circular economy.

TotalEnergies supplies an extensive range of products formulated with synthetic oil via its Total Lubricants brand. These include gear oil, vacuum pump fluid, hydraulic fluid, turbine oil and metalworking fluids.

The plant employs pyrolysis technology created by Plastic Energy, which enables tough-to-recycle plastic in household waste to become useful materials. The thermal process is conducted in an oxygen-free environment under controlled pressure and temperature, and conditions that facilitate the breakdown of materials that are untreatable by standard mechanical recycling.

Consequently, plastic waste originally scheduled for disposal in incinerators and landfills will find a new use. According to TotalEnergies, the resulting synthetic oil has equivalent characteristics to unused polymers and will be integrated into specific petrochemical processes that produce recycled plastics. This means it can be employed in a wide range of applications where quality standards are extremely strict, like manufacturing medical products and food-safe packaging.

To ensure a steady supply of waste plastic for the plant, TotalEnergies has completed agreements with two French companies, Paprec and Citeo. These partnerships will guarantee a continuous flow of raw materials from France’s household waste management system.

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