Barcelona – Kingspan and Synthesia’s project to make polyester polyols from old bottles has met its target of recycling a billion bottles a year by 2025. The company said that, stacked on top of one another, they would reach more than half way to the moon.
Synthesia is a Kingspan subsidiary specialising in chemical products, polyester polyols and PU systems for insulation products. In its Barcelona sites, Synthesia takes post-consumer waste PET and transforms them into the polyols, which are used to make a range of thermal insulation and insulated panel products.
The company said the process reduces the volume of waste PET that ends up in landfill or oceans, while also reducing dependence on virgin raw materials. “With buildings and infrastructure accounting for 38.8bn tonnes of global raw material consumption annually, such technologies will play a critical role in transforming how resources are used and managed within the construction sector,” the company said.
Increased usage of recycled input materials is one of the facets of Kingspan’s circularity strategy, it said, as part of its wider Planet Passionate environment sustainability programme. This was launched in 2019.
“Achieving our target to recycle 1 billion PET bottles into our manufacturing processes is a critical milestone in our Planet Passionate programme, and we are immensely proud to have hit our goal one year ahead of schedule,” said Holly Loughman, Kingspan’s head of sustainability. “This is testament to the dedication of teams around our organisation and the development of innovative recycling technologies by our Synthesia Technology business.”
