Plastics2Chemicals Indaver: from waste to circular building blocks
At the Indaver site in Antwerp, end‑of‑life plastics are given a second life. Indaver converts plastics into raw materials by heating and breaking them down into pure building blocks—ready for reuse in the chemical industry.
These new raw materials are so pure that they can once again be used in demanding applications, such as the production of food packaging. Sweco contributes to this circular story with engineering, construction management and safety coordination for a facility that processes 26,000 tons of waste each year.
- Expertise:
- Industrial solutions
- Client
- Indaver
- Location
- Antwerp
- Services
- Project & Construction Management, Waste-to-X & Circularity, Piping & Stress Engineering, Process Engineering & Simulations
With Plastics2Chemicals, we have succeeded in turning waste into valuable raw materials. We achieved this result by combining innovation, vision, entrepreneurship, collaboration and craftsmanship. I am particularly proud of our team: their expertise and determination made this sustainable solution possible. It shows that we can truly make a difference in the circular economy.
Karl Huts, CEO Indaver
Plastic becomes pure again
The new Plastics2Chemicals (P2C) facility also valorizes off‑gas. This residual stream is converted into steam and energy, creating a closed loop that replaces fossil resources and reduces CO₂ emissions. After a positive evaluation of this demo plant, Indaver foresees the rollout of this technology to other European sites. By extracting value from what used to be waste, we reduce our oil dependency and tackle the global plastic waste challenge.
Engineering partner from day one
Sweco has been involved in Indaver’s P2C project from the very beginning. In 2020, we developed the Basic Engineering for the demo plant, laying the technical foundation for the facility that is now fully operational. During the subsequent Detailed Engineering phase, we translated the concept into execution plans, technical specifications and detailed layouts. This is how an innovative idea evolved into a reliable installation ready for further scaling.
Breakthrough in high‑quality recycling
Imagine extracting around 3.5 tons of plastic waste from the waste stream every hour: roughly the weight of an adult orca. This impressive figure illustrates the potential of the innovative P2C process Indaver developed. With this technology, complex plastics are broken down through depolymerisation into shorter hydrocarbon chains. These chains can then serve once again as high‑quality raw materials for the chemical industry.
Circular economy in motion
The P2C technology goes far beyond the traditional forms of recycling we know today. While mechanical recycling is often limited to well sorted and relatively clean waste streams, chemical recycling makes it possible to reuse even difficult to process plastics. By breaking them down to their molecular base structures, raw materials are produced that are indistinguishable in quality from virgin materials. They can therefore be used directly in a wide range of industrial processes, including petrochemical applications and even the food industry.
Photos: © Indaver / Koen Broos
