Rhea’s Factory, Niagara Bottling to Validate Enzymatic PET Recycling at California Facility

According to industry reports, Rhea’s Factory and Niagara Bottling have been selected for a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) program to validate enzymatic PET recycling under industrial operating conditions at Niagara’s recycling facility in Vernon, California. The project will test Rhea’s Factory’s RheaCycle™ depolymerization platform, with performance independently measured and verified by experts from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The project is one of nine selected nationwide under DOE’s Industrial Technology Validation (ITV) program, which awarded a combined $3 million across the selected projects. The initiative pairs technology developers with industrial host sites to assess new technologies in real production environments.

Rhea’s Factory, a biotechnology company developing enzymatic recycling technologies, combines AI-designed enzymes with a proprietary separation process to break polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into purified terephthalic acid (TPA) and ethylene glycol (EG). These recovered monomers can be used to produce new PET, including material for food-grade packaging.

The validation will focus on PET streams handled at Niagara’s Vernon facility, including recycling residuals, off-spec material and thermoforms. The technology is designed to process a broader range of feedstocks than conventional mechanical recycling, including contaminated PET and polyester textiles, potentially diverting materials that fall outside existing recycling specifications.

Energy and water consumption will be key performance metrics during the trial. Rhea’s Factory said its enzymatic depolymerization process operates at low temperatures and atmospheric pressure. The independent assessment will measure energy and water use per kilogram of recovered monomer.

“Bringing a technology like this to commercial scale takes more than good science,” said Dr. Arzu Sandikci, CEO and co-founder of Rhea’s Factory. She cited federal funding, independent verification, an industrial host and the company’s existing process development as factors needed to advance the technology toward commercial deployment.

Niagara’s participation follows its May 2026 acquisition of the Vernon recycling and packaging facility and the rPlanet Earth brand. The site processes PET into recycled PET (rPET) flakes and pellets for use in Niagara’s packaging operations. RheaCycle™ is expected to be installed as a parallel processing line, allowing the company to evaluate enzymatic recycling without modifying its existing operations.

The two recycling methods serve different feedstock requirements. Mechanical recycling remains suited to clean PET bottle streams, while enzymatic depolymerization could provide another route for residuals and other materials that are difficult to process mechanically. If the validation demonstrates the required performance and economics, the approach could expand the range of PET waste suitable for producing new material.

Site preparation is underway, with installation and commissioning expected to take up to six months before the validation period begins. The project’s results will inform Rhea’s Factory’s commercialization plans and the potential integration of enzymatic recycling into existing PET recovery operations.

Source: GlobeNewswire

SUNSHINE Spotlight: The DOE-backed project will test whether enzymatic PET recycling can complement mechanical recycling by recovering usable monomers from residuals, off-spec material and other challenging feedstocks under industrial operating conditions.