Brightmark uses its patented Plastics Renewal® pyrolysis technology to chemically recycle mixed post‑use plastics—including hard‑to‑recycle HDPE, LDPE, PP, PS, and medical plastics—into two circular hydrocarbon feedstocks, PyBright oil and CarbonBright. These feedstocks serve as certified ISCC PLUS inputs for new plastics, fuels, or waxes, enabling waste generators and recyclers to divert plastic waste from landfills and create a closed‑loop material supply.
Funding
$250M raised to dateRaised to date based on public sources. This may differ from the amount the company actually raised and is based only on what is publicly available on the internet.
Founders
Product
Problem
Post-use plastics, including hard-to-recycle types such as mixed medical plastics, low‑density polyethylene films, and polystyrene, largely end up in landfills, incinerators, or the environment. Only about 9% of plastic waste is currently recycled, creating a significant waste‑management and climate challenge.
Solution
Brightmark addresses this gap with its patented Plastics Renewal® technology, a chemical recycling process that pyrolyzes mixed plastic waste in an oxygen‑starved environment to produce usable hydrocarbon feedstocks. The process first shreds and cleans the plastic, then vaporizes it to generate PyBright pyrolysis oil and CarbonBright, which serve as circular petrochemical inputs for new plastics and other products. By operating dedicated Circularity Centers—currently in Indiana and expanding to Georgia—Brightmark can handle up to 100,000 tons of mixed plastic per year, converting waste that would otherwise be unrecoverable into certified ISCC PLUS circular materials. The company partners with waste generators, such as medical device manufacturers and regional recyclers, to collect difficult plastics and feed them into the system, creating a closed‑loop supply chain that reduces landfill disposal, lowers greenhouse‑gas emissions, and lessens reliance on virgin fossil feedstocks.
Target Audience
Primary customers are waste generators and recyclers—such as healthcare manufacturers, consumer‑goods producers, and regional recycling firms—that need to divert mixed plastic waste from landfills and obtain certified circular feedstocks for new product manufacturing.
Features
- Patented pyrolysis process that converts mixed post‑use plastics, including HDPE, LDPE, PP, PS, and hard‑to‑recycle medical plastics, into high‑value hydrocarbon feedstocks
- Integrated feedstock products: PyBright oil for petrochemical blending and CarbonBright for carbon‑based applications
- Full‑scale Circularity Centers with capacity of 100,000 tons/year, featuring shredding, metal removal, drying, pelletizing, and oxygen‑starved vaporization steps
- ISCC PLUS certification and life‑cycle analysis demonstrating up to 82 % energy savings, 46 % water savings, and 39‑139 % carbon‑footprint reduction versus conventional plastics production
- Ability to accept co‑mixed, single‑stream plastic streams, eliminating the need for pre‑sorting and expanding recyclability of otherwise unrecoverable waste
- Partnerships with industry players (e.g., medical‑plastic recycler Lewis Salvage) to capture niche waste streams and feed them into the circular supply chain
- Production of circular petrochemical feedstocks that can be used to manufacture new, recyclable plastics, fuels, or waxes, supporting a closed‑loop material economy