Integrated plastic waste recycling hub to be built in Germany

From left to right: Stephan Staender (LYB), Ralf Müller, Cristoph Lappenhagen (both Yncoris). Picture: LYB

LyondellBasell (LYB) has secured a location for an integrated plastic waste recycling hub south of an existing industrial park in Knapsack, Germany, signing a land lease agreement with YNCORIS GmbH & Co. KG. The hub is planned to combine various advanced sorting and recycling operations, helping to address the plastic waste challenge and grow the circular economy. The project will be developed in phases; the initial phase will see the construction of an advanced sorting facility that will process mixed plastic waste to produce feedstock for mechanical and advanced recycling. This mixed plastic waste is not recycled today and mostly sent to incineration for energy recovery.

In total, the integrated recycling hub will cover an area equivalent to 20 soccer fields. It is expected that the hub's initial advanced sorting facility will start operations in the first quarter of 2026. These new investments support the company's ambition to produce and market at least 2 million metric tons of recycled and renewable‑based polymers annually by 2030.

"The industrial park in Knapsack is the ideal location for our integrated hub as is it close to our world-scale facilities in Wesseling and will allow us to develop additional technologies for the recycling of plastic waste," says Yvonne van der Laan, LyondellBasell Executive Vice President, Circular and Low Carbon Solutions. "The integration of various technologies will allow us to build scale and offer our customers a wide range of products from recycled and renewable resources."

"The integrated recycling hub will also produce feedstock for the advanced recycling unit the company will build at its Wesseling site," says interim Wesseling-Knapsack site manager Stephan Staender. "The new hub will also provide opportunities for synergies with the company's mechanical recycling facility in Geleen, Netherlands and the company's polypropylene compounding facility in Knapsack."