DEMETO welcomes The Coca-Cola Company to its Industrial Advisory Board

DEMETO (Modular, scalable and high-performance DE-polymerization by MicrowavE TechnolOgy) is a European Project financed by the European Community into the framework of the Horizon 2020. The partners of the consortium are working to bring to reality a revolutionary new way to chemically recycle PET, invented by gr3n, which is both sustainable and profitable. 

The Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) of DEMETO is a committee of stakeholders external to the project that will interact with the partners of the Consortium to follow its public developments and, most of all, provide feedback and comments to steer the direction of its business development activities. The IAB already consists of 16 companies involved in the complete PET/polyester value chain at different level, including: top brands of home textile, sportswear textile, fashion textile, home and personal care and drinks, as well as plastic converters, waste collectors and recyclers.

DEMETO and The Coca-Cola Company share a common interest in closing the loop of the Plastics Circular Economy. As one of the largest beverage producers worldwide, The Coca-Cola Company relies on PET in various applications, from transport to packaging, and has been long been recognized as an industry leader in supporting and enabling PET recycling. 

Maria Luisa Polli, Technical Director, Coca-Cola Central and Eastern Europe said: “Consumers around the world expect companies like ours to be leaders and help make a litter-free world possible. ​ Through our ‘World Without Waste’ vision, we are investing to help make the world’s packaging waste problem a thing of the past. We will do this through a renewed focus on the entire packaging lifecycle – from how bottles and cans are designed and made, to how they’re recycled and repurposed. Producing PET from recycled plastic in a sustainable and profitable way is an important step forward. That is why we are thrilled to work with DEMETO and the broader industry to help make new revolutionary technologies available in support of a circular economy.”

“As Demeto project coordinator and lead for the design and construction of the pilot plant, we are proud to work with The Coca-Cola Company on the Demeto project,” said Gaetano Iaquaniello, Processi Innovativi Managing Director. “The Coca-Cola Company represents one of the largest users of PET in the world and the fact that this project has raised the company’s interest means that producing PET from recycled plastic is indeed an important step forward in environmental protection by the major players in this sector.”

“We are thrilled to have the possibility to cooperate with The Coca-Cola Company, which has a public goal to use 50% recycled PET in its plastic packaging by 2030”, said Maurizio Crippa, Inventor of gr3n technology. “This represents another bold step towards the potential realization of the circular PET.”

By joining the advisory board of DEMETO, The Coca-Cola Company supports the first European Project to build an industrial plant for chemical recycling of PET. Although PET is one of the most widely used materials in the packaging industry, only 20% of it is recycled and enters back into the value chain. Even in Europe, a large amount of PET waste (including coloured, complex and contaminated materials) ends up being incinerated or disposed into landfill. Together with its partners, DEMETO addresses this challenge by introducing a clean, safe and profitable method to treat difficult-to-recycle PET.

Unlike mechanical recycling, DEMETO’s technology allows a complete recovery of PET without any degradation of the material. ​ Thanks to its innovative technology, DEMETO will be able to return post-consumer PET into its basic components, Ethylene Glycol (EG) and Terephthalic Acid (PTA). The process is enhanced by microwave radiation to speed up the reaction time and to make it suitable for industrial application. Since the resulting PET is designed to be competitive to virgin PET in both quality and costs, DEMETO offers a serious alternative source of raw materials to the plastics industry, and aims to enable up to 100% recycled content in packaging at parity cost to virgin resin.

***

About The Coca-Cola Company:

The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is a total beverage company, offering over 500 brands in more than 200 countries. In addition to the company’s Coca-Cola brands, our portfolio includes some of the world’s most valuable beverage brands, such as AdeS soy-based beverages, Ayataka green tea, Dasani waters, Del Valle juices and nectars, Fanta, Georgia coffee, Gold Peak teas and coffees, Honest Tea, innocent smoothies and juices, Minute Maid juices, Powerade sports drinks, Simply juices, smartwater, Sprite, vitaminwater and ZICO coconut water. We’re constantly transforming our portfolio, from reducing sugar in our drinks to bringing innovative new products to market. We’re also working to reduce our environmental impact by replenishing water and promoting recycling. With our bottling partners, we employ more than 700,000 people, bringing economic opportunity to local communities worldwide. Learn more at Coca-Cola Journey at www.coca-colacompany.com and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

About Demeto

The value chain of PET is quite complex. It consists of several steps that are linked in cross-sectorial interactions involving multiple companies across the European and worldwide market. It is at the end of that life cycle that DEMETO proposes its innovative technology: the first feasible and sustainable (economically, environmentally and socially) industrial application of chemical treatment for reuse of PET/Polyester waste streams. Thanks to a process intensifying approach based on innovative usage of microwave radiations developed by gr3n, DEMETO’s recycling technology will provide an indefinite life to PET, allowing to come back to its composing elements (Ethylene Glycol, EG, and Terephtalic Acid, PTA) without degrading the materials and, consequently, paving the way for a disruptive, large-scale circular economy for plastic products.

DEMETO is a European Project and has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The 13 partners that form the DEMETO consortium are from all over Europe and share the common vision that DEMETO will help to create a more sustainable world. www.demeto.eu

About Processi Innovativi

Processi Innovativi, a company owned by KT - Kinetics Technology (in its turn owned by Maire Tecnimont), provides process services for the chemical, petrochemical, oil & gas environmental and energy industries, ranging from basic activities through to high quality technical consulting services. Processi Innovativi develops next generation technologies, to offer new products to the market, to increase productivity and product quality and to improve on the end results. www.kt-met.com

About gr3n

gr3n is an innovation technology company that developed a breakthrough technology enabling the chemical recycling of PET/polyester. Treating plastic waste with gr3n technology would result in the production of plastic building blocks, which could be reused to produce virgin material. gr3n technology would effectively allow the circularity of PET/polyester, which in this way could enjoy an infinite life. gr3n-recycling.com