Niagara Bottling Hosts Enzymatic PET Recycling Test

Plastic Recycling  |  2026-10-16 00:25:03   |   By

The project will validate RheaCycle, Rhea's Factory's enzymatic depolymerization platform, under industrial operating conditions at Niagara's PET recycling facility in Vernon, California.

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): A biotechnology startup's enzyme-driven approach to breaking down plastic waste is about to face its toughest test yet — on a working factory floor.

Rhea's Factory, a biotechnology company developing enzymatic PET recycling, and Niagara Bottling LLC, a family-owned US water and beverage manufacturer, have been selected for the US Department of Energy's Industrial Technology Validation (ITV) program, administered by DOE's Industrial Technologies Office.

The project will validate RheaCycle, Rhea's Factory's enzymatic depolymerization platform, under industrial operating conditions at Niagara's PET recycling facility in Vernon, California, with performance independently measured and verified by experts from DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Nine projects selected

DOE's ITV program selected nine projects nationwide for a combined $3 million in funding. Each project pairs a technology developer with an industrial host site that installs and operates the technology under real production conditions.

'A major barrier hindering industrial adoption of many promising technologies is that end users lack reliable and unbiased information about their performance,' said Assistant Secretary of Energy Audrey Robertson. 'ITV is the cornerstone program that addresses this barrier head on.'

At the Vernon site, RheaCycle combines AI-designed enzymes with a proprietary downstream separation process to break PET down into its two building blocks: purified terephthalic acid, or TPA, and ethylene glycol, or EG. Because the enzymes act selectively on PET, the process accepts a wide range of post-consumer feedstocks, including thermoforms, contaminated PET, residual streams from existing recycling lines, and polyester textiles. The recovered monomers are virgin-equivalent and can be repolymerized into new PET with no loss of quality, cycle after cycle, giving these streams a direct path back into food-grade packaging.

Validating integrated system

The project will validate the integrated system on the PET streams handled at the Vernon facility, including recycling residuals, off-spec material, and thermoforms, under industrial operation. Energy efficiency is a core design metric for RheaCycle: Enzymatic depolymerization runs at low temperature and atmospheric pressure, and the validation will independently measure energy and water use per kilogram of recovered monomer.

'Bringing a technology like this to commercial scale takes more than good science,' said Dr. Arzu Sandikci, CEO and co-founder of Rhea's Factory. 'It takes a federal program willing to fund independent validation, a national laboratory willing to measure it, an industry partner like Niagara willing to host it, and a startup that has already proven the science and built the process to run at industrial scale. This project brings all four together, and that's how a new industry gets built.'

Recent acquisition

Niagara's role builds on a recent investment. In May 2026, Niagara acquired the Vernon recycling and packaging facility and the rPlanet Earth brand to reprocess PET into high-quality recycled PET flakes and pellets for Niagara packaging. The ITV project will install RheaCycle™ as a parallel line at the site, extending the range of PET the facility can return to food grade without modifying Niagara's existing operations.

The two approaches are complementary, according to Rhea's Factory. Mechanical recycling remains the most efficient route for clean bottle streams, while enzymatic depolymerization creates an additional pathway for streams outside the mechanical spec, raising the share of collected PET that gets a second life and improving the economics of each ton processed. Cost has been a design requirement for RheaCycle from the start, with the platform built so that recycled PET competes on economics, as well as on quality and environmental benefits.

Work begins

Site preparation is underway at Niagara's Vernon facility, with installation and commissioning expected to take up to six months before the validation period begins. The results are expected to accelerate Rhea's Factory's commercial roadmap and the partnerships already taking shape around it.

Rhea's Factory, founded in 2024 and based in Berkeley, California, develops enzymatic recycling for plastics and synthetic fibers, starting with PET. Its RheaCycle platform uses artificial intelligence to design both the enzymes and the paired proprietary end-to-end processes that break down plastics into their original building blocks, aiming to turn waste streams considered unrecyclable today — from mixed and multilayer packaging to textiles — into tomorrow's materials.

Niagara Bottling, founded in 1963 and headquartered in Diamond Bar, California, is a family-owned water and beverage manufacturer operating more than 50 plant locations with over 9,000 team members across the United States, Mexico, Australia, and the United Kingdom.

DOE's ITV program is administered by its Industrial Technologies Office and supported by DOE national laboratories, with the goal of accelerating the deployment of high-impact technologies that optimize industrial processes, increase energy savings, and enhance the competitiveness of US industry in evolving global markets.

Courtesy: www.plasticstoday.com