Carbios delays the opening of its French plastic and synthetic materials recycling plant until 2028

The start-up of Carbios' first biorecycling plant, initially planned for 2025, in Longlaville (Meurthe-et-Moselle), France, has been postponed again. In the midst of a challenging economic climate that complicates financing, the French biotechnology company announced on December 18 a new delay in its schedule.

While the company has reaffirmed its determination to pursue the project, it has now been given until the end of the first quarter of 2026 to secure the final tranche of private financing needed to begin construction. As a result, the plant is not expected to be operational until the first half of 2028, three years later than initially planned.

There is a lot at stake for the French company: the future Longlaville plant will allow Carbios' technology for the enzymatic depolymerization of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastics to be brought to an industrial level. Once operational, the site is designed to process the equivalent of 300 million T-shirts (at least 90% made from synthetic materials) or two billion colored bottles in virgin quality PET.

The project has strong backing, with €42.5 million in secured public financing and pre-marketing contracts that already cover almost 50% of future production capacity. However, a “small portion” of private financing is still needed to get the project off the ground, a step hampered by current market wariness of “first-of-its-kind” industrial infrastructure.

L'Oréal, On, Patagonia, Puma, PVH Corp and Salomon are among the companies in the consortium that support the Carbios project, whether to use their recycled materials for bottles or for fibers. After an initial postponement announced in late 2024, the company announced expense reductions in spring 2025.

Three additional plants planned internationally

While its domestic project in France stalls, Carbios is accelerating its asset-light deployment model: selling licenses abroad. The company no longer relies solely on its headquarters in Lorraine to demonstrate its technology, but has industrial partners capable of financing its own facilities.

After signing an important agreement with Wankai Group for a plant in China at the beginning of December, Carbios now intends to implement its technology in three other strategic regions: Europe, North America and South America.

In 2024, Carbios successively announced a first project that replicated its industrial site model in China with the Chinese group Zhink, then in Turkey with its partner Sasa and finally in the United Kingdom with the British company FCC Environment UK.