A partnership between Dow and advanced recycling innovator Plastogaz promises to recover some of the estimated $120 billion of value lost annually in plastic waste by accelerating the conversion of waste plastic into feedstock.

Dow’s investment in Switzerland’s Plastogaz and its proprietary catalytic hydro-cracking technology is intended to scale advanced recycling solutions to enable major brands to use recycled content in their products. This is vital to brand owners in achieving their highly publicized targets for usage of post-consumer recycled content coming up in 2025 and beyond.

The collaboration “is an important strategic step for Dow and advances our commitment to create circular plastics with the lowest possible CO₂ footprint,” said Keith Cleason, Dow’s Vice President of Olefins, Aromatics and Alternatives. “We are excited to continue to collaborate with innovative startups like Plastogaz, who share our ambition to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change and plastic waste, in line with our global sustainability goals.”

Plastogaz’s technology is more efficient and less energy intensive than some other forms of advanced recycling, the company said. Dow’s materials expertise will help further develop the technology. The goal is to convert polyolefin film and packaging waste into materials with the same quality as current virgin polyethylene produced from fossil naphtha, said Dow.

Dow anticipates commercialization to start within the next five to seven years.

“Plastic pollution is a global crisis, and our main goal is to eliminate millions of tons of plastic waste every year and return it into the valuable resource that it is, so it can go on to be used again in a more circular and sustainable way,” explained Plastogaz founder Felix Bobbink. “We want to change the way the world thinks about plastics — not as something to throw away, but as a product that can be used over and over again, sustainably and without damaging our natural environment. If we want to make long-lasting change, we need to work with like-minded and ambitious partners like Dow who have the potential to scale our technology.”

Plastogaz is a spinout company from Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. It was incorporated in May 2020.