PET recycling consortium grows

Nestle Waters, PepsiCo, and Suntory Beverage & Food Europe are joining a consortium led by French start-up Carbios and L’Oreal to develop Carbios’s polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling technology. Carbios uses enzymes to break down the polymer into terephthalic acid, which can be used as a raw material for new PET. Carbios says the process has a better environmental footprint than other depolymerization processes because it requires no heat, pressure, or solvents. The partners want to bring the technology to market within four years.