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The announcement today will mean up to 20,000 tons of plastic residue generated at the current KW Plastics facility in Alabama will be turned into reusable circular products, rather than being sent to landfill. The circular products produced at a Clean Planet eco plant can either be circular petrochemical feedstocks (which are used to generate new plastics), or ultra-low sulfur fuels (used to lower greenhouse gas emissions if used as a replacement for fossil fuels).
“Up to 20,000 tons of plastic residue generated at the current KW Plastics facility in Alabama will be turned into re-usable circular products,”
In November 2021, Clean Planet Energy, a UK-based green-tech company, announced the formation of a USA-based joint venture with Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure to develop Clean Planet Energy USA eco plants across key markets in North America. Starting in New Jersey, the joint venture sought to advance multiple additional projects with agreements in place for plastic supply in Texas, Florida, the Dominican Republic, and other key North American markets.
Based in Alabama, KW Plastics accepts rigid plastics from across the USA and recycles it into a wide range of polyethylene and polypropylene recycled resins for multiple industries including personal care, automotive, agriculture, construction, and flexible packaging applications. The KW Facilities can process over 500 million pounds (250,000 tons) of rigid plastic per annum.
Despite the advanced nature of KW Plastic’s facilities, not all the rigid plastic received into the KW Facility can be mechanically processed into recycled materials, meaning a proportion of the material must be landfilled. Integrating Clean Planet Energy’s eco plant facility downstream of the KW process adds green-catalytic and hydrogen processing capabilities, enabling almost all material received into the KW Facility from US households to now be recycled.
It is believed that locating Clean Planet Energy’s Alabama facility in proximity to KW Plastics, will create a highly efficient, low landfill, the supply chain for plastic recycling, and significantly stop plastics from entering landfill, or potentially our oceans.
David Nazha, CEO of Clean Planet Energy’s North American division, spoke of the significance of this agreement, “Clean Planet’s vision for North America is to integrate our advanced eco plant technology into industries that can support the removal of plastics entering landfill across the USA. The team at KW Plastics share our vision of the reduction of plastics entering landfill, and working with the world’s largest plastics recycler is an important step in this journey. We are very excited about the possibilities for both companies, and the continued protection of the environment achieved by removing waste plastics.”
Scott Sanders, the General Manager of KW Plastics joined KW as a Director of Raw Material Procurement in 1994. “Since 1981, KW has been a pioneer in the revolution of the plastics recycling industry. We have developed processes to handle a wide range of rigid plastics allowing us to work with MRF operators to greatly increase the amount of HDPE and PP containers removed from curb sidestream. Working with Clean Planet Energy at our headquarters in Troy, Alabama is an exciting way to continue this journey, now knowing the even harder to reach plastics can be put back into use.”
Clean Planet Energy, in collaboration with KW Plastics, is currently pushing forward the planning requirements to begin construction of Clean Planet’s first eco plant in Alabama.
