ExxonMobil to Build Plastic-Waste Recycling Operation

SPRING, Texas — To help address the challenge of plastic waste in the environment, ExxonMobil is building its first, large-scale plastic waste advanced recycling facility.

The facility will recycle plastic waste back into raw materials that can be used to make plastic and other valuable products. It is expected to start operations in Baytown, Texas by the end of 2022.

A smaller, temporary facility is already operational and producing commercial volumes of certified circular polymers that will be marketed by the end of this year to meet growing demand, according to ExxonMobil.

"We've proven our proprietary advanced recycling technology in Baytown, and we're scaling up operations to supply certified circular polymers by year-end," said Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil Chemical Co. "Availability of reliable advanced recycling capacity will play an important role in helping address plastic waste in the environment, and we are evaluating wide-scale deployment in other locations around the world."

The new facility follows validation of ExxonMobil's initial trial of its proprietary process for converting plastic waste into raw materials. To date, the trial has successfully recycled more than 1,000 metric tons of plastic waste, the equivalent of 200 million grocery bags, and has demonstrated the capability of processing 50 metric tons per day.

Upon completion of the large-scale facility, the operation in Baytown will be among North America's largest plastic waste recycling facilities and will have an initial planned capacity to recycle 30,000 metric tons of plastic waste per year. Operational capacity could be expanded quickly if effective policy and regulations that recognize the lifecycle benefits of advanced recycling are implemented for residential and industrial plastic waste collection and sorting systems, according to the company.

ExxonMobil is developing plans to build approximately 500,000 metric tons of advanced recycling capacity globally over the next five years. In Europe, the company is collaborating with Plastic Energy on an advanced recycling plant in Notre Dame de Gravenchon, France, which is expected to process 25,000 metric tons of plastic waste per year when it starts up in 2023, with the potential for further expansion to 33,000 metric tons of annual capacity.

The company is also assessing sites in the Netherlands, the U.S. Gulf Coast, Canada, and Singapore.

ExxonMobil has previously made significant steps in environmental sustainability, including:

• To meet customer demand for circular polymers, the company has obtained certifications through the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification Plus (ISCC Plus) process for several of its facilities. ISCC Plus is widely recognized as an effective system to certify products that result from advanced recycling using mass balance attribution of plastic waste.
• To help address the need for increased collection and sorting of plastic waste, ExxonMobil formed a joint venture with Agilyx Corp. focused on developing innovative solutions for aggregating and pre-processing large volumes of plastic waste that can be converted into feedstocks for valuable products.

The company is also a founding member of Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which is focused on accelerating investment in safe, scalable and economically viable solutions to help address the challenge of plastic waste in the environment through a portfolio of projects that has grown to more than 30 ongoing projects across several countries.

Spring-based ExxonMobil is one of the largest publicly traded international energy companies.