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Mura Technology are pleased to announce today the launch of our US Project Development Office in San Mateo, California, led by Mura President for North America, Jon Cozens. In addition, Mura are delighted to announce the location of our first US-based HydroPRS™ site, Mura Cascade ELP (End-of-Life Plastic), in Washington State. The first phase of this new site will recycle approximately 25% of the waste plastics generated in the state.
Commencing construction in 2023, Mura Cascade ELP (“Cascade”) will have a total capacity to recycle 130,000 tons per year of mixed plastics otherwise unrecyclable by conventional mechanical means. Critical to solving the waste challenge experienced across the Pacific Northwest, the feedstock utilized will not compete with existing recycling pathways. Instead, Cascade will use Mura’s HydroPRS™ process to recycle flexible films, wraps, and other plastics which cannot be conventionally recycled, and are otherwise destined for landfill or incineration.
"Mura Technology has been developing HydroPRS™ as a low-carbon, circular solution to the plastic waste problem specifically for global deployment. The US is the world’s largest generator of plastic waste per person, creating an average of 35.7 million tons annually, with just 9% being recycled. Packaging accounts for the majority of plastics in the US waste stream – just 14% is recycled, whilst 70% is landfilled and the remainder is incinerated.
In addition, the US now exports a high percentage of its plastic waste to Canada and overseas to countries with insufficient infrastructure to recycle plastic, like Malaysia and Vietnam. The high volume of plastic waste not currently recycled is a huge economic opportunity, whilst the process also brings the benefits of reducing CO2 emissions and diverting plastic away from the environment. The launch of Mura’s US division, this first site in Washington State and our strategic plans for three other US-based HydroPRS™ sites in the next five years continues the rapid global roll-out of this ground-breaking process, and begins an exciting new era of plastic recycling for the US market.”
Dr Steve Mahon
Mura’s US operations, including Cascade, will be led by Jon Cozens, who formerly managed fleet development for Fulcrum BioEnergy. Previously, he was the Chief Commercial Officer of New Energy Risk, where he was a lead in arranging technology financing and insurance for several of the pre-eminent waste-to-value projects in the US, including the Fulcrum Sierra BioFuels Plant, and the Brightmark Ashley Indiana plant. Jon will now oversee the US expansion and development plans to turn waste plastics into fossil-replacement feedstocks for use in new plastics, as part of a circular economy.
"Our goal is not to be disruptive, but to be complementary. We want to take the parts of the waste industry that work well and complement them with our ability to recycle plastics that cannot be conventionally recycled. Mura want to be at the forefront of the advanced recycling sector, deploying a fleet of well-structured, risk-mitigated, standardized and successful projects. Washington State is the ideal location in which to do that, and we have great partners in DTG Recycle with which to deploy our first US project.”
Jon Cozens
Mura President North America
To provide Cascade with the raw material, Mura have partnered with DTG Recycle of Bothell, Washington. DTG processes nearly 3,000 tons of material daily across its nine material recovery facilities and is the largest recycler of commercial, industrial, construction, and demolition waste in the Pacific Northwest. DTG and Mura have entered into an exclusive partnership for 100% of the Cascade plant feedstock needs for the first 20 years of operation, including the first phase and the expansion to the second phase.
DTG works with its customers to identify recyclable materials in their waste stream and find alternative uses for them. It does this by collecting, transporting, processing, and manufacturing innovative end products from recovered materials. DTG’s diversified collection and transportation fleet offers customers multiple unique methods to collect their waste, giving them every opportunity possible to divert recyclables from the landfill.
"We see this as a tremendous opportunity to help our customers and community achieve our shared sustainability goals. While we’ve successfully found end markets for difficult to recycle plastics in the past, this is the first truly circular solution for these materials where new plastic will be created from recycled feedstock.”
Tom Vaughn
CEO DTG
Earlier this year, Washington State voted into law Senate Bill 5022, which among other things requires up to 50% recycled content in all plastics sold within the state by 2031. Cascade will consume approximately 25% of the 450,000 tons of waste plastics generated annually in Washington State, recycle that volume in state at the Cascade plant, and intends sell the fossil-replacement output locally, enabling true circularity and the most significant opportunity for the state to meet the targets of SB 5022. Cascade will not compete with mechanical recycling for material, or single-use plastic restrictions.
Mura’s proprietary process, HydroPRS™, is capable of recycling end-of-life plastic that would otherwise be incinerated, sent to landfill, or leak into the environment as plastic pollution. By converting mixed plastics back into fossil-replacement oils and chemicals, HydroPRS™ enables plastic waste to be upgraded into feedstocks to make new plastics and other products, including a bitumen-like binder for use in sustainable road development. Unlike many other recycling processes, there is no anticipated limit to the number of times the same material can be recycled with HydroPRS™ and the process is able to convert many types of plastic which currently cannot be recycled via traditional mechanical recycling processes. The use of supercritical water in the HydroPRS™ process makes the process inherently scalable, allowing for efficient scale-up at point of need. In addition to Cascade, Mura has three other sites under development in the U.S., four in Germany and one in the UK, totalling over 1,000,000 tons of global recycling capacity.
