Rotterdam-based Umincorp, a scale-up in sustainable plastic recycling, announced that it has raised fresh funding, bringing the total amount of external funding in 2021 and 2022 to €40M. The company says it will use the capital to become the profitable market leader in the recycling sector. Last year, in December, the company raised €15M to build its innovative plastic recycling plant in Rotterdam.
Umincorp’s recent funding — a €5M loan capital, came from Nationaal Groenfonds. This capital will be used for the building of the rPET facility in Rotterdam. Prior investments were made by renowned, sizable investors in addition to the managing directors who support the company’s expansion financially and strategically.
High-quality recycling of household plastic waste
Founded in 2012 by Jaap Vandehoek, Umincorp is a plastic waste recycler known for turning plastic waste streams into pure raw materials for producers of plastic products. These raw materials from Umincorp’s recycling plants can be used for packaging, allowing the industry to use fewer plastics from fossil raw materials and achieve their recycling targets.
However, every plastic household waste recycling plant faces the challenge of sorting various plastic materials that make up household waste. Umincorp employs both conventional methods and internally designed procedures, such as Magnetic Density Separation, to speed up this sorting process (MDS). Using a magnetic liquid, this method isolates plastics from the waste stream.
Umincorp is able to recover more plastic than conventional methods because of its MDS procedure and other current approaches. Europe will be able to achieve its recycling goals and recover plastics with greater purity thanks to the enhanced plastics recovery. According to the company, with recycled plastics of higher purity, these raw materials can be used for high-quality plastic products and used in innovative ways. Also, this results in more than 80 per cent of CO2 emissions being avoided compared to conventional methods.
Umincorp uses its MDS technology to recover high-purity plastic for manufacturers of plastic items while ensuring that less plastic is burned in incinerators. The company’s rPET factory will finish the raw material loop, going “from plastic to trash to raw material to plastic”, thanks to its capacity to recycle somewhat challenging PET trays.
Capital utilisation
CEO Jaap Vandehoek says, “Umincorp continues to attract large investments because our combination of innovation and results can surpass traditional recycling techniques on a large scale. It proves that there is a lot of confidence in our technology and philosophy, with a lot of future potential. We want to maintain that momentum by continuing to invest in our techniques, people and facilities to become the market leader in this sector. This allows us to recycle sustainable plastic on an even larger scale, replace virgin plastic where possible and, most importantly, drastically reduce the CO2 impact of plastics.”
In order to implement this strategy, Umincorp says it will use the funds for various purposes. In addition to the construction of the factory in Rotterdam, where recycled PET can be compounded and offered as an alternative to virgin plastic, investments are being made in further optimising and running the PRA sorting and recycling factory in Amsterdam at full capacity.
Additionally, there are now plans to build a sizable combined sorting, recycling, and compounding facility in or near the Netherlands. Umincorp desires to strengthen and extend its complete workforce in order to achieve this goal.
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