Carbios and L’Oréal recognized by the World Alliance for helping bring plastic into the circular economy.
♻️🧪🏆Biorecycling for the Win
At the World Alliance Summit earlier this month, Carbios and L’Oréal received a Pioneer Award for the “successful production of the world’s first food-grade PET plastic bottles produced entirely from enzymatically recycled plastic.” The beauty maker and the biotech research company has been collaborating since 2017 on a solution that ensures that plastic will be a material of consequence in the circular economy.
“We are delighted with this recognition, which highlights our partnership with Carbios,” says Jacques Playe, Director of Development and Packaging at L'Oréal, in response to winning the Pioneer Award. “We are convinced that it is by combining the best of innovation, such as the technology developed by Carbios, with the power of industry, that we can develop a more circular economy and encourage other companies to adopt a similar approach.” Carbios, you’ll recall from a news item I shared here a couple of weeks ago, is on track to open a first biorecycling facility in the north of France by 2025. Carbios’ focus thus far has been on developing and scaling biological solutions to address plastic and textile waste. To that end, the company has innovated an enzyme-based process that makes plastics—which are currently not recyclable—recyclable: “Thanks to its highly selective enzyme, optimized for efficient PET degradation, Carbios' depolymerization process can process all types of PET waste, including colored, multilayer or textile waste that cannot be recycled using current technologies,” explains a press release announcing the Pioneer Award. “Furthermore, the two monomers produced (PTA and MEG) make it possible to recreate recycled PET products of identical quality to virgin ones, and suitable for food contact.” Carbios and L’Oréal are the recipients of the very first Pioneer Award. And the November 2023 World Alliance Summit was the first such event. It was hosted by the Solar Impulse Foundation, a non-profit “dedicated to improving the quality of life on Earth by fast-tracking the implementation of clean and profitable solutions to encourage decision makers to adopt more ambitious environmental targets and policies,” according the organization’s LinkedIn page. The organization’s founder, Bertrand Piccard, is described as a serial explorer, psychiatrist, and clean tech pioneer; his own website notes that the Foundation has “succeeded in identifying more than a thousand solutions that can protect the environment in a financially profitable way.”
Looking for more cosmetics industry news & commentary?
Subscribe to the Beauty Insights newsletter today!