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Materials for modern living
Advanced recycling for plastics
Advanced recycling can help extend the usefulness of plastics and address the challenge of plastic waste.
What is advanced recycling?
Advanced recycling can turn more of the plastics we use every day into valuable products. The process converts plastic waste back into its molecular building blocks, which then become the raw material for making new plastics and other products. It’s a proven technology that can be used around the world, significantly improve recycling rates and support a more circular economy.
Watch the video to learn how advanced recycling works
"Advanced recycling and mechanical recycling are complementary. Where mechanical can have limitations on the number of times you can recycle a plastic, advanced recycling can overcome some of those challenges."
Why does advanced recycling matter?
Less than 10% of plastics are recycled today. The rest is incinerated, put into a landfill, or winds up in the environment.
Advanced recycling complements mechanical recycling and helps address plastic waste by enabling the breakdown of more kinds of plastic and converting them back into the molecules needed to make new products. It’s also helping users of plastic such as packaging manufacturers, beverage companies, and restaurants meet their sustainability goals.
Advanced recycling: A different way to handle used plastics
What we're doing now
Our large-scale advanced recycling facility in Baytown, Texas, has been operating since December 2022, capable of processing 80 million pounds of plastic waste per year.
This facility is already helping to meet rising demand for circularity, with sales in the United States, Canada, Thailand and Australia, among others.
We plan to increase our global capacity to 1 billion pounds per year by the end of 2026, with advanced recycling facilities in Europe, the United States, and Asia Pacific.
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Bringing advanced recycling to life
- Plastics play a valuable role in keeping food fresh, water clean, and medical devices sterile
- Advanced recycling helps convert more types of plastics into new products
- Demand for circular material is increasing beyond mechanical recycling's capacity
Materials for modern living Viewpoints
From plastic waste to valuable - goods going circular with ExxtendTM
ExxonMobil recently made its first shipment of certified circular plastic from Baytown, Texas, where in 2021 we processed almost 4 million pounds of plastic waste that would’ve otherwise likely ended up in a landfill. That’s the equivalent of recycling 360 million grocery bags.Climate solutions Perspective
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ExxonMobil Chemical
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