Revalyu Resources invests in world’s largest chemical PET recycling plant amid legislative changes

Revalyu Resources has commissioned its second PET recycling plant at its site in Nashik, India, as customer demands for packaging solutions increase.

The commissioning of the second plant means the Revalyu site now recycles over 20 million used PET bottles daily into 350,000 pounds (~159,000 kg) of high quality PET chips and PET polymer. 

Makarand Kulkarni, CEO at Revalyu Recycling India, tells Packaging Insights that Revalyu products can be used for various applications. Textiles, carpet yarns, high tenacity textiles, packaging (bottles and films) are some of the applications for which Revalyu polymer is used. 

The commissioning of the second Revalyu plant enables the site to recycle over 20 million used PET bottles daily.“Earlier, textiles were a prominent area, now demand from packaging applications is increasing.”

In India, the government has mandated for 30% recycled content in food grade packaging from January 2025. 

Kulkarni expects demand for recycled products to increase multifold. “The textile industry also produces a significant amount of recycled fiber and filament yarns in India.” 

He highlights that demand for virgin polyester is much higher than for recycled polyester with a size of approximately 7 million metric tons: staple fiber — 2 million metric tons, filament yarns — 3 million metric tons, PET polymers — 2 million metric tons and films — 1.2 million metric tons annually. This equates to 8.2 million metric tons while the recycled polyester segment is limited to 1.7 million metric tons.

Besides meeting regional demands, Revalyu exports approximately 50% of its products to various countries.

An energy efficient process
The third plant is fully financed as part of the US$100 million investment, and under construction which will add a further 260,000 pounds (118,000 kg) daily of capacity in Q3 2025. This will increase the site’s recycling capacity to approximately 35 million post-consumer plastic bottles a day and total production capacity to 620,000 pounds (281,000 kg) per day.

The site utilizes highly advanced patented glycolysis-based recycling technologies and automated processes, which make the manufacturing operations highly optimized, scalable, profitable and easily replicable. The recycled PET produced by Revalyu uses 75% less water and 91% less energy than conventional PET.

The recycled PET produced at the plant uses 75% less water and 91% less energy than conventional PET made from oil.

Commenting on the recent successes, Dr. Vivek Tandon, Revalyu Group’s founder says: “This is a revolutionary moment for the PET plastic recycling industry. Finally, the world has a commercially proven, scalable, profitable and environmentally sustainable recycling technology that can reverse engineer used PET plastic into virgin grade quality PET polymer.” 

Revalyu Group’s managing director, Jan van Kisfeld, adds: “This marks a significant milestone for Revalyu and the advancement of global plastic circularity. Imagine PET being recycled continuously, creating a sustainable cycle.”

“Our 100% post-consumer recycled polymer can seamlessly replace conventional PET in any polyester or PET application. Our new plant demonstrates two critical achievements: first, that this chemical recycling process is commercially viable on a global scale, and second, that it operates with an impressively low environmental footprint.”

“Our new facility serves customers with high-quality 100% recycled PET similar to conventional PET and supports them in reaching their sustainability goals.”

Revalyu Resources will set up a 520,000 pounds (236,000 kg) daily PET recycling facility in the US by 2027 and has plans to expand globally with partnerships to increase its production to over 2,200,000 pounds (998,000 kg) per day by 2030.