French biochemistry company Carbios has collaborated with Thailand-based petrochemical firm Indorama Ventures to build a manufacturing plant for bio-recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

Located at Indorama’s PET production site in Longlaville, France, the manufacturing plant is scheduled to open in 2025.

The plant will be equipped with Carbios’ PET bio-recycling technology and will have the capability to process 50,000t of PET waste a year.

The project is intended to help meet the growing demands of consumers and consumer goods companies for more sustainable packaging.

It is expected to generate 150 direct and indirect jobs in total.

Carbios CEO Emmanuel Ladent said: “With this first medium-sized plant, we want to become the world reference for the circular economy of plastics and textiles.

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“By engaging in such a partnership with Indorama Ventures, we confirm our commitment to pursue our initial industrial development in France.

“This plant will pave the way towards international commercial and industrial deployment.

“We are grateful to our shareholders, partners, the French government and Grand-Est Region for sharing Carbios’ ambitions and vision towards a profitable circular economy.”

The bio-recycling PET project is expected to require an investment of around €150m ($168.7m) for Carbios’ core technology, which includes a further purification stage.

An additional investment of €50m will also be earmarked for preparing infrastructure at the site.

Indorama Ventures CEO DK Agarwal said: “We are pleased to implement Carbios’ innovative and transformative technology at our Longlaville site.

“Bio-recycled PET addresses customers’ growing demand to contribute to a cleaner planet through high-quality plastics while decreasing the use of hydrocarbons.”

Indorama Ventures also plans to co-invest in this project and intends to expand Carbios’ biological recycling processes to other PET facilities in the future.

In 2020, Carbios developed a novel enzyme with the capability to break down plastic for recycling.