Swiss startup commissions showcase facility that converts PET plastic waste into virgin-quality raw materials, supporting scalable chemical recycling for food-grade and textile applications.
Swiss cleantech startup DePoly has inaugurated its first PET depolymerization showcase plant, marking a significant milestone in the commercialization of advanced plastic recycling technology. The facility demonstrates the company’s proprietary process for converting post-consumer and post-industrial PET (polyethylene terephthalate) waste into virgin-quality raw materials, supporting a more circular plastics economy.
The newly commissioned plant is designed to validate DePoly’s chemical recycling technology at a larger scale and serve as a bridge toward future commercial production facilities. Unlike conventional mechanical recycling, the process breaks PET plastic down into its original chemical building blocks, enabling the manufacture of new plastics with quality equivalent to virgin resin.
DePoly’s depolymerization technology can process mixed, coloured, and contaminated PET waste that is often difficult or uneconomical to recycle using traditional methods. By recovering high-purity monomers, the process expands the range of plastic waste that can be reintroduced into the production cycle, reducing dependence on fossil-based feedstocks.
The recovered raw materials can be used to manufacture food-grade packaging, beverage bottles, polyester fibres, textiles, and other PET-based products without compromising material performance. This closed-loop recycling approach supports increasing demand for high-quality recycled content across the packaging and textile industries.
The showcase plant will also allow DePoly to collaborate with brand owners, manufacturers, and recycling partners to validate product performance and accelerate commercial adoption. The company aims to demonstrate that chemical recycling can complement mechanical recycling by handling PET waste streams that would otherwise be sent to landfill or incineration.
As governments introduce stricter recycled-content requirements and sustainability targets, advanced recycling technologies such as PET depolymerization are attracting growing investment. The ability to recover virgin-quality feedstocks from difficult-to-recycle plastics is expected to play an important role in meeting circular economy objectives while reducing plastic waste and carbon emissions.
With the launch of its showcase plant, DePoly takes a significant step toward commercializing scalable PET depolymerization technology. The development highlights the increasing role of chemical recycling in transforming plastic waste into valuable resources and supporting the production of high-quality recycled materials for packaging, textiles, and other industrial applications.