Two giant Italian companies are teaming up to fight plastic waste that results from discarded cables.
Large-scale cable company Prysmian and chemical firm Versalis, a subsidiary of the energy giant Eni, have agreed to give new life to plastic cable scrap through a brand-new chemical recycling process.
In this partnership, Prysmian will collect plastic waste from its own production as well as decommissioned cables. Versalis will use its Hoop technology at its Mantua plant to transform the scrap from a pyrolysis oil into a new material for plastic polymers. These polymers will be used by Prysmian to produce new, high-performance cables.
"Thanks to this agreement, we will give new life to old scrap," said Srinivas Siripurapu, chief sustainability, innovation and R&D officer at Prysmian, in a statement. "This step forward is another strong signal of our continued focus on finding new sustainable solutions for our customers and the planet, as we help to reduce the environmental impact of our supply chain and reduce emissions."
This partnership stands out for its real impact on reducing plastic waste, driven by the use of Hoop chemical recycling technology.
Prysmian expects 60% of the XLPE scrap can be repurposed as reusable material that can be made into new cables.
On this, Versalis head of R&D, licensing and projects development Fabio Assandri said, "This collaboration… demonstrates how our research and advanced technologies can provide concrete solutions for managing the end-of-life of complex products."
While plastic waste reduction is at the forefront of this partnership, there will also be practical benefits that will directly impact people's daily lives.
By recovering valuable materials that would otherwise be discarded, chemical recycling helps stabilize supply chains and reduce dependence on newly extracted raw materials. That can result in cost savings for manufacturers, which could eventually trickle down into keeping prices more stable for consumers who rely on power and communication cables.
Plus, with less plastic in the environment, toxic landfills will hopefully begin to shrink over time thanks to waste reduction efforts. One can only hope that similar partnerships will begin to take shape in other countries.
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