Circular plastics cleantech startup MacroCycle Technologies and tech giant Meta announced a multi-year agreement under which Meta will purchase environmental attribute certificates (EACs) from plastic recycling, enabling the social media giant to target emissions from the plastics in its supply chain, and helping MacroCycle to fast-track the development of its first U.S. PET recycling and production plant.
Launched in 2023 by CEO Stwart Peña Feliz and CTO Jan-Georg Rosenboom, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based MacroCycle uses chemistry and selective non-toxic reagents to return plastic waste that would have otherwise ended up in landfills into its previous high-quality, virgin-grade, form, making it feasible to use in new products.
The company’s “SolvoGenesis” process which dissolves, purifies, and upcycles PET from mixed and contaminated plastic waste that conventional mechanical recycling cannot handle, provides a simpler recycling method that requires 80% less energy than fossil-based PET production, and 50-75% lower capital expenditure than competing chemical or biologic recycling methods, creating a low-energy and low-cost solution to “upcycle” plastic waste for re-use.
Stwart Pena Feliz, Co-Founder & CEO of MacroCycle Technologies, said:
“Most recycling forces a trade-off: mechanical processes are cheap but degrade the material with every cycle and struggle with complex waste streams. Chemical processes that break PET all the way down to its monomers are energy-hungry and expensive. SolvoGenesis
sidesteps the tradeoff. We dissolve and purify PET while keeping the polymer chain intact, which is why we can take the mixed, blended, and contaminated waste that other processes reject and still come out with virgin-quality material at a fraction of the energy.”
Under the new agreement, Macrocycle will generate third-party verified EACs by producing recycled PET (rPET), a lightweight plastic commonly used in packaging and textiles, while Meta will purchase the certificates as part of its efforts to address emissions from plastics in its supply chain.
The companies said that EACs can be used to support demand for lower-carbon materials and help finance the development of early-stage manufacturing capacity, with the agreement providing the long-term product demand needed by Macrocycle to finance construction of its first American PET recycling and production plant in the Southeastern U.S., expected to produce 5,000 tonnes of recycled PET plastic annually.
Devon Lake, Head of Net Zero Strategy, at Meta, said:
“Reaching net zero means advancing lower-carbon solutions across our supply chain and in the materials we use. 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.”
