Modus: Chemical PET Recycling Plant Planned in Huelva

The Spanish company Modelo de Upcycling Sostenible, S.L. — Modus for short — is planning to build a chemical recycling plant for PET waste in the Parque Huelva Empresarial industrial estate in Huelva, the capital of Huelva province in south-western Andalusia. At the end of July 2026, the competent environmental authority of the Andalusian regional government opened the integrated environmental permit procedure, the environmental impact assessment and the other technical project documents to public consultation. The project is being processed under file number AAI/HU/107.

The plant is intended to process both PET packaging waste and textile waste containing polyester. According to the published project information, it is designed for an annual capacity of up to 60,000 tonnes of packaging waste or 57,600 tonnes of textile waste. The different volumes relate to alternative compositions of the input material and should therefore not be understood as capacities that can be used simultaneously.

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Breaking PET Down into Chemical Feedstocks
Unlike mechanical recycling, the PET used at the plant will not merely be shredded, cleaned and remelted. Instead, chemical depolymerisation by means of alkaline hydrolysis is planned. In this process, the PET polymer chains are broken down and converted back into the chemical feedstocks purified terephthalic acid, or PTA, and monoethylene glycol, or MEG.

According to the project documents, the process will be supported by reactors using microwave radiation. The PTA and MEG could subsequently be used again to manufacture PET. The project developer states that the resulting materials are expected to achieve a quality comparable to that of virgin fossil-based raw materials. Independent operating data for the planned plant are not yet available.

Potential feedstocks include, in particular, PET waste that can only be mechanically recycled to a limited extent because of contamination, colouring, material combinations or its textile structure. The process is therefore intended to complement established mechanical PET recycling.

Company’s Second Known Plant Project
In addition to the Huelva project, Modus is pursuing another chemical PET recycling project in Medina del Campo in the province of Valladolid. An initial positive environmental impact declaration was issued for this plant in 2025, followed later by an environmental permit. The planned facility is to be built on a site covering just under 80,000 square metres and is designed to treat up to 51,020 tonnes of non-hazardous plastic and textile waste per year. The proposed process there is also based on alkaline hydrolysis and microwave technology.

The publicly available documents do not clearly indicate whether the Huelva project is intended to be implemented in addition to the Medina del Campo facility or whether it represents a revised location and capacity plan.

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