The total funding allocated to the project amounts to approximately €15.5 million and will be disbursed following the signing of the Grant Agreement with the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), expected by March 2026.
The EU Innovation Fund is one of the European Union’s main instruments supporting low-carbon technologies. For this round, the Commission selected 61 projects across 18 countries, including four from Italy.
ReNova ChemPET entails the construction, in Cerano (Novara, Italy), of the first industrial-scale plant in Italy for the chemical recycling of PET, a material widely used in packaging, food containers and textile. The plant, scheduled to start operations in early 2029, will have an estimated annual capacity equivalent to recycling over 250 million PET bottles, which will be converted into new, high-quality raw material for the textile industry.
The project is based on the innovative ChemPET technology, owned by Saipem and Garbo, which enables the depolymerization of PET into new high-quality material, even from coloured or complex plastics as well as polyester textiles, and represents a significant evolution compared to traditional mechanical recycling, thanks to simpler, safer, and more sustainable processes.
