DOE Reinstates $375m Eastman Recycling Grant

Tennessee-headquartered Eastman will receive a major federal grant the Trump administration canceled last year, originally meant to help fund the company’s second chemical recycling plant in Texas. The reinstated US Department of Energy (DOE) grant will cover capacity expansions at the Kingsport methanolysis facility and development of the potential second plant, but in an Oct. 30 earnings call CEO Mark Costa hinted at potential acquisitions of recently closed RPET processing capacity. “There are recycling plants that have shut down in this country that we can get up for a very – we can purchase for a very low price,” he said. “There are polymer lines that have been shut down, and there’s infrastructure around both of them that are sitting there in those sites.” About 25% of US post-consumer PET processing capacity has closed in the past 18 months, according to the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR), amid a prolonged influx of cheap imported resin, both virgin and recycled. APR owns Resource Recycling, Inc., publisher of Plastics Recycling Update.

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