In the United States (US), environmental technology developer Agilyx Corporation (Agilyx) held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 19, 2018, marking the beginning of commercial polystyrene recycling operations at its Tigard, Oregon (OR) plant, the world's first-of-its-kind facility.
Speakers at the ribbon-cutting ceremony represented Agilyx strategic partners in the new plastics circular economy and included local government representatives from Tigard City Council and Washington County, and individuals representing the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and Americas Styrenics LLC (AmSty). The ribbon-cutting ceremony opened a week of celebrations around Earth Day and scheduled plant tours.
Agilyx is an innovator in finding new ways to capture and convert used plastics into valuable products. Delivery of a polystyrene-to- styrene oil/monomer solution is a major step toward greater sustainability and circularity, noted Mike Levy, Senior Director of ACC’s Plastics Foodservice Packaging Group.
Jon Timbers, Senior Manager for Sustainability and Innovation at AmSty congratulated Agilyx on taking the linear process of plastics consumption and bending the line to close it into a loop – the new circular plastics economy.
Both Bob Terry, Washington County Commission Chair, and Jason Snider, President of the Tigard City Council, congratulated Agilyx on the launch of commercial operations and the major innovation that the Agilyx technology represents.
The plant is the first commercial-scale closed-loop chemical recycling process for polystyrene in the world. The plant will recycle up to 10 tonnes per day of previously unrecoverable polystyrene waste and produce high-quality styrene oil that will be used by styrene manufacturers AmSty and INEOS Styrolution for processing for manufacturing consumer goods.
