The "Suzhou Municipal Soft Plastic Waste Chemical Recycling" project—co-initiated by COMY, Germany’s GIZ, BNU, and Suzhou Chengtou—has finished all pilots.
It is part of BMZ’s "Reshaping Packaging-China-EU Recycling Value Chain" project, aiming to offer a tech-economical solution for urban soft plastic disposal via advanced recycling models. Launched in June 2023 and concluded in December 2023, the project focused on residential mixed soft plastics (sorting ~30 types, 3 chemical recycling pilots for pyrolysis oil, 1 hydrorefining pilot, and full testing).
Research shows over 50% of China’s municipal plastic waste (80%+ soft plastics) can become high-quality pyrolysis oil via COMY’s equipment, with mixed/crushed soft plastics (no secondary screening) hitting 74.33% average dry-basis oil yield.
The report notes soft plastics make up >60% of municipal waste (mostly daily packaging), and the project’s pyrolysis oil, gas (LPG-like), and solid carbon slag enable full resource use. The "mechanical sorting + chemical recycling" model has good ROI, fit for large-scale promotion.
As an innovative practice, the project boosts recycling, cuts incineration emissions, and aids "zero-waste cities" and dual-carbon goals; industry insiders say chemical recycling may become a core solution for plastic pollution.
COMY Chemical Recycling Research Institute: Founded in 2021, COMY is China's first think tank for the waste plastic chemical recycling industry. It has published the "Waste Plastic Chemical Recycling Industry Development Report" series of research results. COMY is responsible for collecting and analyzing process data and test results, and organizing the writing of the project report based on data from the waste plastic raw material and chemical recycling product database.
Beijing Normal University: A key university directly under the Ministry of Education and a major force in national scientific and technological innovation. COMY is responsible for front-end community waste composition research, including sorting and testing, to clarify the source, composition, and chemical recyclability of plastic waste. It is also responsible for completing the back-end LCA analysis based on the results of COMY's chemical recycling experiments.
Suzhou Chengtou Renewable Resources Development Co., Ltd.: As the implementing entity for the construction of Suzhou's renewable resource recycling network system, it is responsible for coordinating with Suzhou communities and assisting with waste composition research, as well as the collection, storage, and transportation of soft plastics.