The Business Finland funded project called UrbanFactory by VTT, Aalto University and ten companies, aims to elevate the recycling rates of challenging plastic waste streams through chemical recycling. Based on the learnings of the previous Urban Mill initiative, the project focuses on critical aspects such as impurity removal and identifying potential real-world waste streams. An overall target is to scale-up the fast-pyrolysis process and related operations and assess their techno-economic feasibility.
The UrbanFactory project, started at the beginning of 2025, is set to run two years. The project will primarily focus on increasing the recycling rates of plastic waste, in line with the EU directive where the recycling rate of packaging materials is set to achieve 55% by 2030.
“The project seeks to bridge the gap between mechanical and chemical recycling, particularly targeting at plastic waste streams that are typically unfit for mechanical recycling. Utilising pyrolysis technology, the project will break down plastics back to their raw materials (monomers) which is a route to high-quality virgin-like plastics,” says project manager and Research Scientist Joona Lahtinen from VTT.
Typically, the streams that cannot be utilized by mechanical recycling contain many impurities such as metals, fibres, halogens or different types of plastics. A key challenge is first to identify available and affordable waste streams for the pyrolysis process and secondly to ensure high yield of optimal end products from the process.
UrbanFactory explores novel pyrolysis oil pre- and post-treatment methods aiming to make a step change in hard-to-recycle plastics recycling.
“The ambitious target in UrbanFactory is 85% product yield with mixed plastics, in comparison to state-of-art 70%,” Lahtinen says.
New perspectives on recycling
UrbanFactory introduces fresh approaches to recycling, emphasising impurity removal, raw material stream mapping and assessing the suitability of these materials for the process. The project is exploring various waste streams, including sorting rejects of separately collected plastic waste, plastics separated from mixed waste, and industrial waste streams such as multilayer plastics, which are typically incinerated today.
The project is structured around four work packages:
Raw material pre-treatment and acquisition: This initial phase involves identifying and characterising raw materials with project partners and exploring required pre-treatment methods. The key focus is on recover suitable polyolefin-rich pyrolysis feedstock from affordable and available mixed plastic waste.
Pyrolysis and scaling: This phase focuses on piloting fluidized-bed pyrolysis to achieve high yield for steam cracker feed from hard-to-recycle plastics, such as multilayer plastics. The project will also explore techniques to remove impurities such as halogens, metals, PET, and PVC during pyrolysis, potentially using various catalysts or adsorbents, enabling to use more mixed feeds without excessive needs in downstream steps.
Upgrading The goal of this work package is to upgrade the quality of the pyrolysis oil without significantly compromising the yield. In addition, the work focuses on maximizing the utilization of side-streams, waste water treatment and developing analytical methods with partners.
Conceptual and techno-economic assessment: This final package involves defining realistic recycling concepts, conducting lifecycle assessments and modelling the processes to produce a comprehensive flow sheet of the overall process and evaluate the techno-economic feasibility.
Partnerships and contributions
Wipak Oy: Providing materials for testing, seeking chemical recycling solutions for multilayer plastics.
Valmet: Aiming to commercialise plastic chemical recycling, offering expertise in fluidized-bed pyrolysis.
Borealis: Focused on increasing material yield and minimising waste for incineration.
BASF: Interested in chemical recycling results for multilayer plastics, contributing to pyrolysis standardisation.
Stora Enso: Find solutions for circularity of fibre and polymer barrier coatings.
L&T: Offering raw materials and expertise, interested in pre-treatment data and recycling concepts.
Plasteco Oy: Seeking support for chemical recycling via pyrolysis, providing background knowledge.
Salpakierto Oy: Supplying raw materials, interested in data on sorting and pre-treatment phases.
Keskinen Recycling Oy: Offering expertise in extrusion, helping remove impurities during pre-treatment.
PR-Pulping: Exploring pulp methods for post-consumer segregated plastics.
Aalto University: Researching distillation processes for plastic pyrolysis, heavily involved in process modelling.
“The project will demonstrate the viability of chemical recycling, providing empirical evidence and encouragement for companies to advance in this field. Through scientific publications and intellectual property rights, we aim to gain visibility and prove the economic feasibility of chemical recycling,” Lahtinen envisions the outcomes of the project.
