“Our new pilot machine has the capacity to recycle two tonnes of composite waste per day”, says Wendy Perben, Head of Marketing and Communications at Composite Recycling

JEC Composites: Your first recycling unit has been installed in France. What’s the background to this first deployment?

Our first machine was installed in Nantes in partnership with Veolia at the end of 2024. Through this collaboration, Veolia collects fibreglass and carbon fibre waste from local major manufacturers and brings it to us for treatment at their RVD (Recyclage et Valorisation des Déchets) Centre-Ouest site. This partnership enables our clients to recycle their production waste for the first time instead of disposing of it in landfills.

The goal of this partnership is to process up to two tonnes of composite waste daily over 6 to 12 months, while also mapping the composite waste streams in the Loire Atlantique region. Veolia will use the data gained from this pilot phase to plan a regional network for composite waste treatment units, setting the stage for large-scale recycling operations in western France.

Meanwhile, this initial phase allows us to fine-tune our technical protocols and logistics. A key focus is determining optimal placement of our recycling units to remain close to both the producers of the waste and the buyers of our recycled materials, with the aim of maximizing efficiency and minimizing carbon footprint.

JEC Composites: You’ve developed a new machine, customised for your business. Can you describe it for us?

Central to our recycling technology is a process called thermolysis, which heats composite waste in the absence of oxygen, causing the resin to vaporize and transform into a reusable oil rather than be lost through combustion, and leaving behind the glass or carbon fibres. Every two tonnes of composite waste treated yields approximately one tonne each of fibre and thermolysis oil, though the ratio varies depending on the waste type.

Our process – which is proprietary and patent-pending – is quite unique in that we treat large, unshredded pieces of composite material.  This allows us to recover the long fibres largely intact so that they maintain much of their structural properties for reuse. Our tests indicate that these fibres can be reclaimed and reused up to eight times.

Another standout feature is that our thermolysis oven, built for us under contract by Swedish engineering firm FiberLoop, is designed to fit into a 30-foot container, so that it can be moved.  One of the key use cases we envisioned was installing it directly at wind farms to recycle decommissioned blades on-site, eliminating the cost and emissions associated with transporting them over long distances to a central processing facility

JEC Composites: How have you been operating so far without this customised oven?

In our first year (2021), we benefited from the resources and expertise of the LPAC (Laboratory for Processing of Advanced Composites) at EPFL (Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne), with the valuable support of Professor Véronique Michaud. This collaboration was instrumental in our R&D efforts.

Since that time, we’ve been using two 5-kilo prototype ovens customized to our thermolysis process. With these, we have conducted over 450 recyclability tests from paying clients, building a robust knowledge base and partnerships in many various industries along the way, and laying the foundation for our current pipeline of major clients. Today we serve clients in automotive, wind energy, aeronautics, marine, construction, sporting goods, transport, textiles, petrochemical and other industries, and our partners include industry leaders like Veolia, Owens Corning, Hitachi Energy, Chomarat, Arkema, Beneteau, and Huntsman. Ten of our clients have revenues in excess of $4 billion (€3,88 billion) , something we feel is pretty impressive for a young company like ours.

We’ve also had some terrific partnerships with other startups to innovate sustainable composite solutions such as with fellow Swiss startup CompPair.  For example, for our joint collaboration with Objectif Dunes – the racing association of Airbus employees – we were able to combine CompPair’s HealTech technology with our recycling process to produce parts for their rally buggy that are recycled, recyclable, and repairable. For our two companies, this was a terrific avenue to demonstrate that sustainability doesn’t have to come at the expense of performance.

JEC Composites: Who are your customers today?

Our customers today fall into three categories:

1. Composite industrials: These companies generate production waste, which can comprise anywhere from 5% to 30% of their composite material usage depending upon the application. This waste stream is clean and homogenous and so makes for easy recycling and high-quality reclaimed outputs for our downstream clients.
2. Fibre and textile manufacturers: These clients purchase the recovered fibres for reuse in new manufacturing.
3. Plastics, resin manufacturers, and petrochemical companies: These companies use the thermolysis oil as recycled content in their products.

End-of-life composite waste, such as wind turbine blades and boat hulls, represents a future opportunity for us. However, these materials require additional development to address challenges around the variable composition and frequent contamination of the waste material. Ultimately, just about anything can be recycled, but the quality and consistency of the incoming waste directly impacts the characteristics and resale value of the outputs, and so we must develop and adapt our process accordingly.

JEC Composites: Can your technology be applied to materials other than glass fibre-reinforced composites?

We began with fibreglass, addressing a gap we identified in the market for high-quality recycling solutions.  Up until then, some recyclers were shredding the fibreglass waste and using it in lower-value applications like fuel or filler, which was a step forward in order to avoid landfilling it.  But no one was recycling it at such a quality level that manufacturers of high-performance products could reuse it as content for their new production. So that was the niche we decided to tackle at Composite Recycling.

Also when we started, our reclaimed fibres could only be used to make new chopped strand mat fibreglass. But our tech team is always pushing the envelope to optimize our process and increase the quality of our outputs.  So now it is also possible to make new woven fibreglass directly from the woven glass fibres we recover – preserved intact – from the waste.  This is an industry first, generating lots of excitement and opening up many new high-value applications for our recycled outputs.

Another new capability for us came at the request of customers who asked us to treat their carbon fibre composite waste, an initiative which produced excellent results. Carbon fibre requires different calibration and cleaning protocols, but also has much higher value per tonne recycled, and so represents an exciting new application for our process.

JEC Composites: What markets are next for Composite Recycling?

In France, we plan to expand alongside Veolia, focusing on industrial hubs where waste generation and demand for recycled materials are concentrated. Internationally, we see strong interest from countries like Wales, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and Austria, where composite waste disposal restrictions are driving greater urgency for manufacturers using composites to find recycling solutions. The situation is particularly acute in Austria, where the national government has already implemented the EU composite waste disposal restrictions, causing some companies to pay to store their waste – and even forcing some factories to close and relocate – in absence of a disposal solution for their composite production scraps.

Beyond Europe, Japan, India, and the United States—especially Texas, the biggest producer of wind energy in the US—are promising markets. These regions offer significant opportunities to scale our technology and make a meaningful contribution toward sustainability in composites.

JEC Composites: What is your ultimate goal?

Our vision is to drive a circular economy for composites, diverting all composite materials away from landfill and toward new production. By combining cutting-edge technology with strategic partnerships, we aim to transform how industries approach sustainability—delivering innovative solutions that balance performance and environmental responsibility.

We have lots of great projects in the pipeline for 2025, including some big partnerships which we’ll be announcing at JEC World in March, so stay tuned for more!