Good news for Clean-Seas Morocco (CSM). The recycling company based in Agadir, Morocco, has just secured its plastic raw material from Clean Oceans 2 for the next few years. Under the agreement, the European initiative will collect 1 million metric tonnes of plastic waste per year for Clean-Seas.
Plastic waste recycling capacity at the Clean-Seas Morocco (CSM) plant in Agadir, on Morocco’s southern Atlantic coast, is set to increase from 20 to 120 tonnes per day by the end of 2023, and to 500 tonnes per day by 2025. CSM intends to achieve this ambition with the support of the Clean Oceans 2 initiative, which will henceforth supply the plastic raw material to its recycling plant in Agadir. The announcement was made on 31 July 2023 by the subsidiary of the Clean Vision group, based in California in the United States of America.
This will involve exactly 1 million metric tonnes of plastic waste per year, collected by Clean Oceans 2 in the coastal areas of developing countries in Asia, the Middle East and Africa. These are regions where 90% of the plastic waste that pollutes the oceans enters via major river systems, due to a lack of regular waste collection, recovery and upstream disposal.
Recycling waste via pyrolysis
Securing this volume of raw material is essential to CSM’s plan to expand its plastic conversion network (PCN) in North Africa, and will enable it to pursue its offtake agreements. In addition, “this contract will allow us to offer a reduced risk financing opportunity to our debt providers in the hope of unlocking non-dilutive sources of capital, which we see as adding value for our shareholders, to rapidly expand the company’s portfolio,” explains Dan Bates, Clean Vision’s Managing Director.
CSM estimates that it will need between 30 and 100 lines of tonnes of plastic per day to recycle the 1 million tonnes of plastic delivered each year by Clean Oceans 2. It will use pyrolysis technology. This is a distillation process used to transform plastic waste into fuel. Heated to over 400°C, the plastic waste is transformed into gas. Depending on the condensation (cooling) temperatures of this gas, different types of fuel are obtained, including petrol, diesel, pyrolysis oil, gas that can be reused in combustion, etc.
CSM will also produce low-sulphur pyrolysis oil from plastic feedstocks for use by multinational petrochemical companies in the manufacture of plastic packaging. This will generate an estimated gross revenue of $360 million a year.
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Clean-Seas Morocco is also helping to reduce plastic pollution in Morocco. A commitment shared by the Clean Oceans 2 initiative, launched in 2018 by Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), the German development agency, the European Union (EU) and French Development Agency (AFD). The aim is to reduce the discharge of plastics, microplastics and other waste into the oceans through better management of solid waste, wastewater and rainwater. Funding for the initiative is set to double between now and 2025, from €2 billion to €4 billion.
Inès Magoum
