Neste doubles waste plastic processed during 2023

In an effort to scale up its chemical recycling, Neste Corporation (Neste) recently announced that it has successfully concluded another series of industrial-scale processing runs with increasing volumes of liquefied waste plastic at its refinery in Porvoo, Finland.

The company stated that the processing runs in the second half of 2023 doubled the total amount of liquefied waste plastic processed by Neste to more than 6,000 tons. For the first time, the largest run in 2023 exceeded 2,000 tons of liquefied waste plastic. The output of the runs is high-quality, ISCC PLUS certified material for new plastics.

“There is an urgent need to develop solutions to curb climate emissions, while simultaneously tackling the global plastic waste challenge,” says Heikki Färkkilä, vice-president of chemical recycling at Neste. “We are processing increasing volumes of waste plastic, which is testament to our commitment to scale up chemical recycling. At the same time, these volumes also demonstrate the commitment of our partners, suppliers and the industry as a whole: We are confident we will see chemical recycling become a commercial-scale contributor to the circularity of plastics in the upcoming years.”

Volumes to increase
The current processing runs use Neste’s existing refinery equipment and will pave the way for reaching capability to start continuous commercial processing, the company stated.

The company plans on significantly increasing its processing volumes through its 111 million euros investment for upgrading its liquefied plastic waste at the Porvoo refinery announced this past June. The upgrades will allow for Neste to increase capacity at the facility to 150,000 tons of liquefied waste plastic per year.

“We have developed our capability to process circular raw material at the Porvoo refinery over the recent years and are now set to build a respective facility. The new facility processing 150,000 tons of liquefied waste plastic is planned to be finalized in the first half of 2025,” Markku Korvenranta, executive vice-president for Neste’s Oil Products stated during the announcement this past June.

Upgrading is one of the three processing steps turning liquefied waste plastic into high-quality feedstock for new plastics: pretreatment, upgrading and refining. This investment is the first phase of Neste’s EU Innovation Fund backed PULSE project. It is expected to be finalized in the first half of 2025. In total, PULSE is aiming for an annual capacity to process 400,000 tons of liquefied waste plastic, Neste stated.