Image: Grendelkhan ( CC BY-SA 4.0 )
What it is
Samsara Eco opened its first enzymatic recycling plant at Jerrabomberra, New South Wales. The firm’s EosEco process uses designed enzymes to break plastics back to monomers so they can be remade as virgin-identical nylon 6,6 and polyester. PKN Packaging News reports a four-year path from bench to this first plant, a plan for a 20,000-tonne commercial nylon plant in Asia by 2028, and more than AUD $150 million raised. In 2024 the company made apparel with lululemon that it calls the first enzymatically recycled nylon 6,6 product. This is a different company and a broader feedstock claim than Carbios’s PET work in France: not a second name for the same plant.
Problem it targets
Globally only about 10 percent of plastics are recycled, and coloured, multi-layer, and mixed packs are the hard remainder. Mechanical recycling loses quality. A true monomer loop would help: if collection and energy add up.
How it works
Enzymes depolymerize targeted plastics under mild conditions. The company says the process is built for hard-to-recycle streams, including multi-layer packs, and that the output plugs into existing polymer supply chains. It is chemistry with a protein catalyst, not a microbe released into the ocean.
Status and players
Samsara Eco (Australia; ANU lineage, Main Sequence and Woolworths among early backers); brand partners including lululemon; Deakin University’s recycling hub and The LYCRA Company on site R&D. Municipal collection remains the other half of the loop.
Risks and limits
A first plant is not a solved waste crisis. Mixed plastic is still cheaper to bury or burn. The 20,000-tonne Asian plant is a plan for 2028. Do not confuse a Jerrabomberra opening with circular packaging at supermarket scale.
Sources
Samsara Eco official site. A first plant is not supermarket-scale circularity.