Niagara Bottling to Test Enzymatic PET Recycling at Industrial Scale

Rhea’s Factory and Niagara Bottling will validate an enzymatic PET recycling system under industrial operating conditions at Niagara’s Vernon, California facility, with performance independently assessed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Published October 16, 2026

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Rhea’s Factory and Niagara Bottling LLC are preparing to test an enzyme-based PET recycling technology under industrial operating conditions at Niagara’s recycling facility in Vernon, California.

Rhea’s Factory, a biotechnology company developing enzymatic PET recycling, and Niagara Bottling, a family-owned U.S. water and beverage manufacturer, were selected for the U.S. 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, with performance independently measured and verified by experts from DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Nine Projects Selected for DOE Validation Program

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 where the technology is installed and operated 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 facility, RheaCycle combines AI-designed enzymes with a proprietary downstream separation process to break PET into its two primary building blocks: purified terephthalic acid, or TPA, and ethylene glycol, or EG.

Because the enzymes act selectively on PET, the process is designed to accept a range of post-consumer feedstocks, including thermoforms, contaminated PET, residual streams from existing recycling lines and polyester textiles.

The recovered monomers are designed to be repolymerized into new PET, creating a potential pathway for difficult-to-recycle material to return to food-grade packaging.

Industrial Test Will Measure Energy and Water Use

The project will validate the integrated RheaCycle system using PET streams handled at Niagara’s Vernon facility, including recycling residuals, off-spec material and thermoforms.

Energy efficiency is a core design metric for the system. The enzymatic depolymerization process operates at low temperature and atmospheric pressure, while the validation will independently measure energy and water consumption 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.”

RheaCycle to Operate Alongside Mechanical Recycling

Niagara’s involvement follows its May 2026 acquisition of the Vernon recycling and packaging facility and the rPlanet Earth brand. The facility reprocesses PET into recycled PET flakes and pellets for Niagara packaging.

The ITV project will install RheaCycle as a parallel line at the Vernon site, extending the range of PET the facility can return to food grade without modifying Niagara’s existing operations.

According to Rhea’s Factory, the two recycling approaches are intended to complement each other. Mechanical recycling remains the preferred route for clean bottle streams, while enzymatic depolymerization provides an additional pathway for PET streams that fall outside mechanical-recycling specifications.

The company said cost competitiveness has been a design requirement for RheaCycle alongside material quality and environmental performance.

Site Preparation Underway in California

Site preparation is underway at Niagara’s Vernon facility. Installation and commissioning are expected to take up to six months before the formal validation period begins.

The results are expected to support Rhea’s Factory’s commercial development plans and future industry partnerships.

Rhea’s Factory, founded in 2024 and based in Berkeley, California, develops enzymatic recycling technologies for plastics and synthetic fibers, beginning with PET. Its RheaCycle platform uses artificial intelligence to design enzymes and associated processes that break plastics into their original building blocks.

Niagara Bottling, founded in 1963 and headquartered in Diamond Bar, California, operates more than 50 plant locations with over 9,000 employees across the United States, Mexico, Australia and the United Kingdom.

DOE’s Industrial Technology Validation program is designed to assess emerging technologies under operating industrial conditions and provide independent performance data that can support future deployment decisions.

Courtesy: www.plasticstoday.com