Originally slated for 2025, the commissioning of Carbios’ first biorecycling plant in France’s Longlaville (Meurthe-et-Moselle) has been pushed back again. Amid a challenging economic climate that is complicating financing, the French biotech announced on December 18 a further delay to its timetable.

While the company has reaffirmed its determination to see the project through, it has now given itself until the end of the first quarter of 2026 to secure the final tranche of private funding needed to start construction. As a result, the plant is not expected to be operational until the first half of 2028, three years later than initially planned.

The stakes are high for the French company: the future Longlaville plant is intended to scale up Carbios’s technology for the enzymatic depolymerisation of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastics to industrial level. Once operational, the site is designed to process the equivalent of 300 million T-shirts (at least 90% made from synthetic materials) or two billion coloured bottles into virgin-quality PET.

The project enjoys strong backing, with €42.5 million in public funding secured and pre-commercialisation contracts already covering nearly 50% of future production capacity. However, a ‘small portion’ of private funding is still needed to get the project off the ground, a step hampered by the current market’s caution towards ‘First-of-a-Kind’ industrial infrastructure.

L’Oréal, On, Patagonia, Puma, PVH Corp, and Salomon are among the companies in the consortium supporting the Carbios project, whether to use its recycled materials for bottles or for fibres. Following an initial postponement announced at the end of 2024, the company nevertheless announced spending reductions in spring 2025.

Three additional plants planned internationally

While its in-house project in France is stalling, Carbios is accelerating its ‘asset-light’ deployment model: selling licences abroad. The company is no longer relying solely on its Lorraine site to demonstrate its technology, but is counting on industrial partners capable of financing their own plants.

After signing a major agreement with Wankai Group in early December for a plant in China, Carbios is now aiming to establish its technology in three other strategic regions: Europe, North America, and South America.

In 2024, Carbios announced, in succession, an initial project replicating its industrial site model in China with the Chinese group Zhink, then in Turkey with partner Sasa, and finally in the UK with the British company FCC Environment UK.