2021 GCSA Outstanding Practice: Total Solution for Circular Economy – FENC’s pioneering TopGreen®ChemCycletechnology

The world produces approximately 90 million metric tons of polyester each year. With applications ranging from packaging materials, PET bottles, textiles and labels, polyester is one of the most widely used plastic materials in the world.

Mechanical recycling is currently the most developed recycling approach for polyester materials, and FENC is leading the world with its recycling technology. In particular, the Company is no.1 in producing food-grade rPET and ocean polyester.

Approximately 64% (58 million metric tons) of polyester is used to produce textile products each year. However, only 13% of these textile products are recycled, causing a tremendous waste of usable resources. Mechanical recycling is often ill-fitted for textiles, packaging materials and labels due to the complexity in their ingredient mix. To tackle this problem ,FENC started researching and developing chemical recycling back in 2013. Chemical recycling involves technology that can effectively reduce polyester waste into rPTA and rEG, the raw materials for producing polyester. The pilot plant began production in 2019, and a breakthrough came in 2020. Currently, testing for recycling methods such as B2B (Bottle to Bottle), F2F (Fabric to Fabric) and L2L (Label to Label) using chemical recycling have been completed. FENC also collaborates with brands such as Coca-Cola and adidas on R&D and downstream applications, providing a total solution for waste of all kinds in the global polyester industry.