Boulogne biangu, France - a coalition of 18 European institutions, including Michelin, has launched a major initiative to deal with post consumer waste that is difficult to recycle, including composite industrial waste and multi-layer clothing.

The whitecycle project coordinated by Michelin was launched on July 1, aiming to develop a circular economy and transform "complex waste containing textiles made of plastic into high value-added products".

Michelin said at a press conference on July 5 that by 2030, the goal of this $10million project is to develop the capacity to recycle more than 2 million tons of pet. Pet is the third most widely used plastic in the world.

The plan aims to chemically treat composite industrial waste containing textiles and tires, hoses and multilayer clothing at the end of the product life cycle.

As part of this work, the alliance will establish new processes for all steps in the value chain, including classification technologies that make it possible to "significantly increase" the plastic content in complex waste streams.

The project will also develop a "pretreatment process" for recycled plastics, followed by a "very innovative" recycling process that uses an enzyme to sustainably decompose the pretreated plastics into pure monomers.

This process will end with the re polymerization phase, which will produce "similar to new" plastics for the production of tires, hoses and clothes.

Funded by the horizon Europe project, whitecycle works in five countries: France, Spain, Germany, Norway and Turkey.

Among other academic and research participants, the project involves three industrial partners, Michelin, mandals and INDITEX; Two waste management companies, Synergie TLC, estato; Iris intelligent sorting company; Carbios, a bio recycling company; A pet plastic processing plant operated by kordsa company and I-point, a product life cycle analysis company.