Circular Economy

$25M Circular Plastics Fund to Catalyze Investment in US Recycling Infrastructure

The partnership between Closed Loop Partners and Dow, LyondellBasell and NOVA Chemicals represents an initial investment and an invitation to stakeholders across the plastics recycling value chain to join forces with this catalytic capital strategy.

Published 5 years ago | About a 2 minute read

Image: Oceanworks/Facebook

This week, three plastics and material science giants — Dow, LyondellBasell and NOVA Chemicals — established the Closed Loop Circular Plastics Fund to invest in scalable recycling technologies, equipment upgrades and infrastructure solutions across the US and Canada. The Fund, managed by Closed Loop Partners, and with an initial $25 million investment, invites businesses across the plastics value chain to join in advancing the recovery and recycling of plastics in the US and Canada. The goal of the catalytic fund is to grow to deploy $100 million — through a combination of the Fund's investors, additional corporate investors and financial institutions — to attract additional capital beyond the Fund's own commitments. At scale, the Fund’s investments aim to recycle over 500 million pounds of plastic over its lifespan.

The Fund will continue Closed Loop Partners’ work to bring US and Canadian recycling infrastructure and processes into the 21st century by investing in three strategic areas — to increase the amount of recycled plastic available to meet the growing demand for high-quality, recycled content in products and packaging:

Access – Increasing the collection of targeted polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) plastics by advancing current and next-generation material collection systems
Upgrading and optimizing recycling systems
Manufacturing – Investing in facilities and equipment that manufacture ﬁnished products, packaging or related goods using recycled content

With their extensive supply chain networks and markets, Dow, LyondellBasell and NOVA Chemicals are collectively well-positioned to help advance the transition to a new, more circular system for plastics.

“The plastic resin manufacturers that create value for their shareholders now and in the future will be the ones that ensure that 100 percent of their products are safely recycled or reused, and never discarded in a landfill or elsewhere in our ecosystem. We look forward to investing in sustainable infrastructure and innovations that enable and encourage other companies, including investors in the Closed Loop Circular Plastics Fund, to deploy significantly more of their own capital to further scale these critical solutions,” says Ron Gonen, Founder & CEO of Closed Loop Partners. “Alongside championing scalable reusable packaging models and innovative new materials, growing recycling and circular economy infrastructure in the US and Canada plays a critical role in eliminating plastic waste and reducing the need for the costly extraction of raw materials.”

“Addressing the challenge of plastic waste in the environment requires collective action on multiple fronts,” says LyondellBasell CEO Bob Patel. “In addition to our company’s efforts, further enhancements to recycling infrastructure are critical to capturing the value of used plastics and advancing the circular economy. We believe successful joint investment can transform the challenges of plastic waste into sustainable business opportunities.”

Read more about the Closed Loop Circular Plastics Fund here …