Borealis Acquires Ecoplast to Support its Plastic Recycling Business

Borealis expects the recycled PO market to grow by 2021 and in this background the firm has also made ‘PO recycling’ a vital component of its overall strategy.

Austria – Borealis, a leading provider of innovative solutions in the fields of polyolefins, base chemicals and fertilizers, has recently announced that it has fully acquired the Austrian plastics recycler Ecoplast Kunststoffrecycling (Ecoplast). Based in Wildon, Austria, Ecoplast processes around 35,000 tonnes of post-consumer plastic waste from households and industrial consumers every year, turning them into high-quality LDPE and HDPE recyclates, primarily but not exclusively for the plastic film market.

The expectation of Borealis is that the recycled PO market will grow substantially by 2021, which is the strategic rationale behind the acquisition. The company has made PO recycling a key element of its overall PO strategy because of its potential to support both growth and sustainability.

Borealis has been an industry frontrunner in making polyolefins more circular. In 2014, it began offering high-end compound solutions to the automotive industry, consisting of 25 % and 50 % post-consumer recycled content. Borealis was also the first virgin PO producer to explore the possibilities of mechanical recycling, by acquiring one of Europe's largest producers of post-consumer polyolefin recyclates - mtm plastics and mtm compact – in July 2016. Since then it has continued to invest into the development of technology and new products in the area of circular polyolefins.