Dow, LyondellBasell & NOVA Chemicals aim to recycle over 500 million pounds of plastic
Three leading plastics and material science companies –– Dow, LyondellBasell and NOVA Chemicals –– announced the establishment of the Closed Loop Circular Plastics Fund to invest in scalable recycling technologies, equipment upgrades and infrastructure solutions.
The Fund, managed by Closed Loop Partners, and with an initial US$25 million investment, invites businesses across the plastics value chain to join in advancing the recovery and recycling of plastics in the US and Canada.
The goal of the catalytic fund is to grow to deploy US$100 million, through a combination of the Fund's founding investors, additional corporate investors and financial institutions, in order to attract additional capital beyond the Fund's own commitments.
At scale, the Fund’s investments aim to recycle over 500 million pounds of plastic over the Fund’s lifespan.
Dow, LyondellBasell and NOVA Chemicals have established the Closed Loop Circular Plastics Fund.
Focus on three strategic areas
The Closed Loop Circular Plastics Fund will invest in three strategic areas to increase the amount of recycled plastic available to meet the growing demand for high-quality, recycled content in products and packaging:
Access – Increasing the collection of targeted polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) plastics by advancing current and next-generation material collection systems, including transportation, logistics and recycling sortation technologies and infrastructure.
Optimization – Upgrading recycling systems to more efficiently aggregate, classify and sort the targeted plastics to increase the total amount of high-quality plastic, including food-grade and medical-grade plastic, sent for remanufacturing.
Manufacturing – Investing in facilities and equipment that manufacture finished products, packaging or related goods using recycled content, including recycled PE and PP.
A runway for further investments and synergies
Since its founding in 2014, Closed Loop Partners’ existing portfolio of more than 50 investments has diverted more than 4,600 million pounds of material from landfills and back into manufacturing supply chains.
Building on this, the Closed Loop Circular Plastics Fund will invest in technologies, companies and infrastructure projects that enhance the recovery and recycling of target materials including post-consumer and post-industrial PE and PP in the U.S. & Canada.
The Fund will deploy a flexible mix of debt and equity financing, and will also aim to stimulate mainstream co-investments, including those from financial institutions, into circular solutions for plastics to further accelerate impact at scale.
With established facilities, extensive supply chain networks and markets, Dow, LyondellBasell and NOVA Chemicals are collectively well-positioned to help advance the transition to a new, more circular system.
Together, they create a precedent for a sustainable future for the plastics industry, building a runway for further investments and synergies with other stakeholders in the plastics recovery and reuse value chain.
