Plastic waste remains one of Europeโs most persistent environmental challenges. Despite growing awareness, only a small fraction of plastics is effectively recycled, while a significant share is still incinerated. Mixed plastic waste, especially packaging, represents nearly 40% of all plastic waste, yet its complexity makes it notoriously difficult to process using traditional recycling methods.
Within the SYMBA Project, initiatives like this are powerful examples of how industrial symbiosis can transform problematic waste streams into valuable resources. SYMBA BOOST, the projectโs campaign dedicated to deepening the understanding of industrial symbiosis, highlights exactly this principle: what one company considers waste can become a resource for another.
A concrete illustration of this philosophy in action is the HYBRID project, where KU Leuven and Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant are developing an innovative process to convert mixed plastic waste into highโvalue chemicals.
How the HYBRID process embodies Industrial Symbiosis
The HYBRID project demonstrates how crossโsector collaboration, a core theme of SYMBA, can unlock new circular value chains. By combining chemical and biological technologies, the project turns lowโvalue, hardโtoโrecycle plastics into dicarboxylic acids (DCAs), essential building blocks for materials like nylon and polyester.
- Catalytic pyrolysis: transforming plastics into usable hydrocarbons
Mixed plastic waste is heated with a catalyst to break it down into a liquid mixture of alkanes and alkenes.
- Target molecules: carbon chains between C6 and C14
- Smaller molecules (C5 and below): reused as fuel to power the process
- Impurities: assessed to determine whether additional cleaning steps are needed
This step mirrors SYMBAโs focus on resource optimization, where waste streams are converted into inputs for new processes.
- Biological conversion: engineered yeast creates valuable acids
The liquid hydrocarbons are fed to Yarrowia lipolytica, an engineered yeast capable of converting them into DCAs.
- Focus on producing adipic acid, currently fossilโderived
- Multiple engineered strains ensure robustness and flexibility
- Twoโphase fermentation reduces toxicity and increases efficiency
- Innovative extraction methods maximize resource recovery
This biological โfunnelingโ approach reflects SYMBAโs emphasis on innovation-driven symbiosis, where biotechnology enables new circular pathways.
Why this matters for us
The HYBRID project exemplifies the principles that SYMBA BOOST aims to communicate:
Industrial symbiosis in action
Different sectors, waste management, chemical processing, and biotechnology, collaborate to turn a problematic waste stream into a valuable feedstock.
Circularity through cooperation
Instead of being burned, mixed plastic waste becomes a resource that fuels another industry, reducing environmental impact and creating economic value.
A modern form of โbarter 4.0โ
SYMBA BOOST describes industrial symbiosis as a contemporary version of barter, where companies exchange byโproducts, energy, and resources to support each otherโs processes. The HYBRID project is a perfect example: waste plastics from one sector become chemical building blocks for another.
๐ What Makes HYBRID unique and relevant to SYMBA
- It tackles mixed plastic waste, one of the hardest streams to recycle.
- It combines chemical and biological processes, leveraging the strengths of both.
- It demonstrates how industrial symbiosis can unlock new value chains that would not exist without crossโsector collaboration.
- It aligns with SYMBAโs mission to show how waste becomes opportunity, and how innovation can drive Europe toward a more resilient, bioโbased, and circular economy.
The HYBRID project fits within Moonshot, an industry-driven innovation programme of the Flemish Government that supports companies in reducing their CO2ย emissions. This project has received financial support of the Flemish Government and Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO), project nr.โฏHBC.2023.0550.