Cyclyx International, a joint venture among Agilyx, ExxonMobil, and LyondellBasell, announces a final investment decision (FID) to build the first Cyclyx Circularity Center (CCC). The facility is designed to accept and process plastics that are currently going to U.S. landfills for use in a range of recycling technologies.
“This milestone is evidence of the real progress we are making to increase the circularity of plastic waste as a resource,” said Joe Vaillancourt, CEO of Cyclyx. “The first-of-its-kind CCC in Houston will serve as a blueprint, which we can replicate across the U.S. to progress our long-term goal of increasing the recycling options for plastic waste. Cyclyx is proud to be an innovator and enabler for unlocking plastic’s potential.”
ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell are together investing $135 million into Cyclyx to fund operating activities and construction costs for the new facility, which has an expected startup in mid-2025. The facility will have the capacity to produce 300 million pounds of plastic feedstock per year for advanced and mechanical recycling. Cyclyx is sourcing a combination of post-consumer, commercial, and industrial plastic waste of all kinds for the CCC.
Leveraging Cyclyx’s proprietary technology, the CCC will accept, analyze, and process a wider range of plastic waste than what is traditionally accepted, including difficult-to-recycle plastics, such as food packaging, chip bags, and bottle caps. Cyclyx’s technology has a comprehensive understanding of post-use plastics’ complexity including polymer composition, additives, physical properties, and manufacturing processes. This comprises the Cyclyx feedstock database, which has been developed over 20 years, beginning at one of its founding companies, Agilyx.
The CCC will focus on sorting and custom blending collected material to ensure feedstock specifications and classifications meet expectations for ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell, who have offtake rights from the CCC. Throughout this entire process, Cyclyx adheres to stringent ISCC PLUS standards to ensure the delivery of traceable, certified feedstocks through the CCC.
Operations will create more than 100 jobs within the first CCC. Additional positions are expected to be created off site as a result of the CCC development, including in logistics and collection programs.
Cyclyx is exploring the development of additional CCCs across the U.S., with the goal of increasing the recycling rate of plastics and potentially diverting billions of pounds of plastic waste from landfills.
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