Port of Amsterdam Gets New Plastics-to-Oil Plant

The Port of Amsterdam will soon be home to a chemical plant designed to convert non-recyclable plastics into usable diesel fuel using pyrolysis. The Port of Amsterdam and the facility's operator, Dutch startup Bin2Barrel, believe that its operation will reduce net CO2 emissions by about 57,000 tonnes per year. The port and Bin2Barrel believe that the $33 million facility it will be the first commercial application of plastics-to-oil technology. 

The Bin2Barrel plant at the Port of Amsterdam will repurpose non-recyclable plastics that Dutch waste collectors would otherwise burn. It has a design capacity of 35,000 tonnes per year of feedstock and 190,000 barrels of synthetic fuel, far more than previous installations. Its output will be marketed to marine users. 

Other firms have deployed comparable methods in the plastics-recycling market, though not at the same scale. Among other examples, U.S.-based Agilyx developed a batch pyrolysis process for converting plastics to synthetic crude in 2008 and recently switched to a plastics-to-chemicals business model. Indian firm Agile Process (APC) has installed small-scale plastics-to-oil equipment in Kenya, India and Europe. Scottish firm Recycling Technologies has a trial-scale plastic-to-oil plant in Swindon and is building a commercialized version in Perth later this year. 

"By creating a new product from an otherwise problematic waste product, Bin2Barrel fits perfectly within the mission of Port of Amsterdam to facilitate energy transition as well as transition to a circular economy," said Roon van Maanen, Head of Circular & Renewable Industry at Port of Amsterdam. “Bin2Barrel introduces innovative and badly needed technology that will enable us to make use of a currently non-recyclable flow of waste in a manner that makes perfect sense."