BIO: Andrew Cheng is the Director of Global Business Development for ECO USA and has more than 12 years experience in the silicone recycling industry. Having worked with numerous silicone manufacturers throughout the world, he has extensive knowledge of silicone with emphasis on its recyclability and sustainability. He was heavily involved in the development and construction of ECO USA’s recycling facility located in West Virginia, USA. This facility was fully commissioned in 2018 and until now remains the only silicone recycling plant in North America. As one of the pioneers of the silicone recycling industry, Andrew is fully committed to expanding ECO USA’s presence and works feverishly to educate professionals within the industry about the environmental benefits of collecting silicone for recycling as well as its potential for helping businesses reach carbon neutral goals.

• You will be speaking about silicone recycling at the conference. Though this is definitely gaining momentum it’s still in it’s infancy. Can you give us some insights about the process overall?

Unlike plastics (thermoplastics) where they can be melted and reformed, silicone rubber cannot be melted and therefore requires a chemical recycling process. ECO USA’s recycling process involves depolymerizing the silicone chain into monomers. The monomers are then filtered and refined before being polymerized again into silicone products.  

• How are you seeing advancements in the actual recycling process—what's different now compared to a few years ago?  

We’ve come a long way since our pilot operation in 2018. At the time, our primary goal was to produce silicone oil, more precisely polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Although we have improved our depolymerization process and significantly increased our plant capacity throughout the years, the biggest breakthrough is with our filtration and refinement processes. These new processes allow us to produce a clean cyclics stream that in turn can be used to produce all sorts of silicone downstream products such as silicone elastomers. Not just PDMS.   

• What have the challenges been in recycling silicone elastomers?

The challenge has always been the collection of silicone rubber for recycling. Like most recycling operations, the silicone recycling process is not fond of impurities. It is therefore essential for us to collect pure silicone streams that are not co-mingled with other polymers. At the moment, we only collect post-industrial material for recycling and we’re very honored to have great working relations with many manufacturers that do a great job of sorting their material before it arrives at our facility.  However, as we will eventually out-grow this current stream, we may need to explore post-consumer sources that are notoriously difficult and expensive to collect and sort.

• How do you see the market developing over the next few years?

I strongly believe the market for silicone recycling will continue to strengthen as carbon neutrality and green, sustainable products continue to be in the spotlight. While this is so, most companies are still focused on the bottom line and will not consider a more expensive “green” alternative to use in their formulations. At ECO USA, we truly understand the need for competitive prices and have been consistently increasing our plant’s capacity to reach economies of scale.   Currently the PDMS silicone oil we produce is equal in quality, has significantly lower carbon footprint, and more competitively priced than virgin-grade PDMS.

We’re extremely confident we’ll continue to offer eco-friendly silicone at competitive prices as we continue to expand into more downstream products.