Ineos Styrolution and Canadian firms ReVital Polymers and Pyrowave have formed a partnership to recycle PS packaging, using the waste collected in consumer curbside and depot systems.

The partners will use Pyrowave’s catalytic microwave depolymerization (CMD) technology to recycle single-serve PS packaging and use recycled PS in making new products and packaging. Ineos announced last November that it was collaborating with Pyrowave in a North American PS recycling project.

ReVital will install Pyrowave’s CMD technology as part of its recycling process. In 2017, the company opened the first plant in Canada that combines a container recovery facility and a plastics recovery facility in one location (Sarnia, Ontario).

The technology will convert ReVital’s sorted post-consumer PS packaging to a liquid that contains monomers, which Ineos Styrolution will then process and return to virgin resin that can be made into any new PS product.

The companies said the partnership will not only reduce the amount of PS packaging going to landfill but will also address the global problem of plastic pollution in marine environments.