A cup made of recycled PLA, produced by Coexpan and TotalEnergies Corbion, recently passed form, fill, seal testing. | Courtesy of TotalEnergies Corbion

TotalEnergies purchased a Spanish plastics reclaimer. Meanwhile, a joint venture involving TotalEnergies announced it is now marketing a recycled PLA cup.

Paris-based TotalEnergies purchased Iber Resinas, a mechanical recycling company with two plants near Valencia. Iber Resinas recycles post-consumer and post-industrial PE, PP and PS into resins sold into the automotive, packaging and construction markets. 

“This acquisition is a further step towards achieving our ambition of increasing the share of circular polymers in our plastics production to 30% by 2030,” Nathalie Brunelle, senior vice president of polymers, refining and chemicals at TotalEnergies, stated in a press release. 

This isn’t the first time TotalEnergies, an oil/gas and petrochemicals giant, has purchased a mechanical recycling operation. In 2019, TotalEnergies acquired French PP reclaimer Synova, which has a production capacity of about 45,000 tons per year. 

The release noted that the Iber Resinas acquisition would allow TotalEnergies to “increase its production of circular polymers in Europe, extend its range of recycled products, and enhance its access to feedstock through Iber Resinas’s network of suppliers.”

TotalEnergies also has a partnership with bioplastics producer Corbion, which operates a plant in Thailand that can produce 75,000 tons per year of polylactic acid (PLA). 

In related news, on May 9 their joint venture, TotalEnergies Corbion, and packaging converter Coexpan unveiled a cup made of recycled PLA. The cup is available as a white or highly transparent cup and could be used for yogurt, pudding or other products. It previously passed form, fill, seal (FFS) testing at a Coexpan facility in Madrid, according to a press release. 

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