New Partnership Aims to Make Jefferson County a Leader in Plastic Recycling

Gully did not say how the program would be rolled out and how the community could be involved.

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Jefferson County could be on its way to a new countywide recycling program.

In late April, the Jefferson County Commissioners’ Court unanimously approved and signed a memorandum of understanding with Exxon Mobil and Cyclyx to collaborate on the development of a plastic recycling program for the county.

Exxon Mobil spokesman Matt Gully said this is part of a plan the company announced in November 2024 to invest $200 million to expand advanced recycling operations in Baytown and Beaumont.

Gully did not say how the program would be rolled out and how the community could be involved.

“We are solutions providers, and this multi-million-dollar investment will enhance our ability to convert hard-to-recycle plastics into raw materials that produce valuable new products,” said Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil Product Solutions. “At our Baytown site, we’ve proven advanced recycling works at scale, which gives us confidence in our ambition to provide the capacity to process more than 1 billion pounds of plastic per year around the world. We’re proud of this proprietary technology and the role it can play in helping establish a circular economy for plastics and reducing plastic waste.”

The company said the investment will add 350 million pounds per year of advanced recycling capacity at Baytown and Beaumont, bringing its total capacity to 500 million pounds per year. As part of the memorandum, the county and both entities will create a steering committee, which will meet monthly to work toward increasing the county’s volume of residential recycling and help to establish the county as a recycling hub.

Exxon Mobil said it not only wants to recycle more, it also wants to change recycling overall. Traditional mechanical recycling struggles to remove oils, grease or food waste from the used plastic, many of which end up in a landfill. It also can’t process multiple layers of plastic. In comparison, advanced recycling breaks plastic down to a molecular level, which can then be made into raw materials like fuels, lubricants and new plastics.

“The world’s plastic waste challenge will be solved with innovation, collaboration and supportive government policy to improve waste management and circularity,” said McKee. “ExxonMobil is doing its part by developing scalable technology, investing in recycling infrastructure, and helping our customers meet their circularity goals.”

To do this, Exxon Mobil is partnering with Cyclyx, a new kind of plastic feedstock management company that partners with industry to increase the recyclability of plastic products. Once the committee has agreed on an initiative, they will assign a working team to carry it out.

Courtesy: www.beaumontenterprise.com