Global plastics production has nearly doubled over the past two decades, reaching approximately 431 million tons in 2024. At the same time, circularity has not kept pace with continued consumption growth, creating a growing need for scalable solutions that can keep more plastic in circulation.
Demand for circular plastics is also growing as recycled content requirements become more ambitious across major markets. Regulations such as the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR), extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes in the U.S., and India’s Plastic Waste Management Rules are accelerating the transition toward circular materials. Depending on the market, these policies can require packaging to contain between 10% and 65% recycled content by 2040.
Meeting that demand requires scalable ways to process plastic waste streams that are difficult to recycle through conventional methods.
This is where
Nerea™ comes in, bringing a standardized, modular approach to advanced chemical recycling.
What Is Nerea™?
Nerea™ is a standardized, modular solution for advanced chemical recycling of hard-to-recycle plastic waste designed for customers across the plastics and waste value chain, including:
- Waste and energy-from-waste operators looking to recover more value from difficult plastic waste
- Project developers seeking a more predictable path to chemical recycling deployment
- Refiners and petrochemical companies looking for additional sources of circular feedstock
Rather than treating every chemical recycling facility as a fully bespoke project, Nerea™ applies a standardized product model intended to support repeatable deployment and reduce uncertainty across the project lifecycle.
Bringing Together Complementary Expertise
Nerea™ combines the capabilities of
Alterra and
Technip Energies to bring technology, feedstock expertise, and industrial delivery together in one solution.
Alterra’s Proven Liquefaction Technology
At the core of Nerea™ is Alterra’s thermochemical liquefaction technology.
The process is designed to handle heterogeneous and hard-to-recycle plastics, breaking down plastic waste into shorter hydrocarbon chains that are condensed into a circular oil for use in refining or petrochemical processes. The technology has been commercially proven through continuous operation at
Alterra’s reference plant in Akron, Ohio. That operating experience provides an important foundation for Nerea™ as the solution moves toward broader industrial deployment.
Technip Energies’ Engineering and Modularization Capabilities
Technip Energies contributes engineering, project delivery, and modularization expertise to Nerea™.
Its capabilities help turn the underlying technology into a standardized industrial product that can be engineered and deployed repeatedly. This supports Nerea™’s focus on reducing project complexity and improving predictability throughout development and delivery.
Together, the three companies bring complementary expertise to a single standardized solution designed for industrial deployment.
Why Chemical Recycling Needs a Standardized Approach
Many chemical recycling projects are developed as highly customized facilities, with engineering and design decisions shaped by the technology, site, feedstock, and available infrastructure. That customization can add development costs, increase pre-investment requirements, and extend project timelines.
Nerea™ takes a different approach. Its standardized, modular design is intended to reduce project complexity and minimize pre-investment while providing greater predictability around cost and schedule. The standardized design also supports repeatable deployment across different industrial environments.
Turning Hard-to-Recycle Plastics into Valuable Feedstock
Not all plastic waste is well suited to conventional mechanical recycling. Mixed and heterogeneous waste streams can present challenges for existing recycling systems.
Nerea™ provides another pathway for these materials.
Through thermochemical liquefaction, Alterra’s process converts hard-to-recycle plastics into a liquid hydrocarbon intermediate. The material can then be refined into recycled feedstock for use in oil refining and petrochemical processes, including the production of new polymers and chemicals.
This gives difficult plastic waste another potential use as an industrial resource, while reducing reliance on virgin fossil-derived materials for new plastic production.
In this way, chemical recycling can complement mechanical recycling by providing an additional pathway for plastic waste streams that are challenging to recycle mechanically.
Supporting the Growth of a Circular Plastics Economy
Scaling plastic circularity requires both demand for recycled materials and the industrial infrastructure to produce them. Nerea™ is designed to help bridge that gap through a standardized, modular approach to advanced chemical recycling.
By bringing together Alterra’s commercially proven technology and Technip Energies’ engineering and modularization capabilities, Nerea™ is designed to support more predictable deployment of chemical recycling capacity at industrial scale.
Explore Nerea™
Ready to move beyond bespoke chemical recycling projects? Nerea™ offers a standardized, modular approach designed to simplify deployment and support more predictable scaling.
Learn more about Nerea™.
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