Earth911 Podcast: Carbios’ Emmanuel Ladent on the Dawn of Enzymatic Plastic Recycling

Is plastic recycling at a turning point? Meet Emmanuel Ladent, CEO of Carbios, a Clermont-Ferrand, France-based company that has developed an enzymatic plastic recycling technology that promises to make plastic a circular material with 95% yields, comparable to aluminum. The Carbios technology recycles polyethylene terephthalate, or clear and colored PET, better known as plastic #1, which is the basis for making billions of single-use bottles and thermoform containers for produce, as well as the polyester used in clothing. Carbios’ process requires no sorting of PET and polyester, relying on much lower temperatures than mechanical recycling, so it requires less energy and water. Emmanuel explains that the Carbios process produces two monomers, the chemical basis for making new PET, which can be recycled many times in contrast to the two or three cycles today’s PET recycling can…