Why I think
$ADUR will have no problem scaling:
First let's understand the biggest challenge most plastic recycling companies face. And it's not the chemistry, it's about the building the actual infrastructure:
- For conventional recycling like pyrolysis to make money, the plant has to be big. I mean, really HUGE.
- Small plants just don't pay off, so the first commercial plant often has to be large right out of the gate. And large gets expensive fast. Easily $3,500 to $7,500 per tonne of capacity, which pushes you toward a nine-figure project before you've earned a cent.
- These plants also tend to run on custom-built machinery. And when something hasn't been built before, scaling it up is genuinely hard to predict, hard to staff, and super slow.
- There's also a step people miss: the oil pyrolysis produces usually isn't ready to use on its own.
- It carries contaminants a steam cracker won't accept, so it needs a second clean-up stage before it becomes a real feedstock.
None of this makes the technology bad.
- It just means the bar to get that first plant standing is incredibly high. Which is why a lot of "advanced recycling" projects get announced, then quietly stall and struggle a lot to be profitable.
Now look at how
$ADUR is building.
- Their first industrial plant is small, 10,000 tonnes a year.
- And it's modular. This is important.
- Because their goal isn't to scale it by building a monster. But through adding more copies.
- It runs on standard, off-the-shelf industrial equipment. Not custom built equipment (this was validated by a patent they filled in January 2025).
- With known behavior comes easier hiring and faster pace to build as the scaling ratios are known.
- Also, the process is water-based and runs at a modest temperature without needing exotic solvents or a giant high-pressure loop.
- And Aduro says its oil comes out ready for a steam cracker in a single step. (This was validated a few months ago by an undisclosed chemical major.)
Btw, they have a major steam cracker right next to where they're building in the Chemelot Industrial Park.
- So, looking closer, makes total sense for
$ADUR to call this plant a "First-of-a-Kind" (FOAK) plant.
- Because they're really building the first plant of its type ever built.
- Conventional recycling need big, custom and complex plants. So the very first plant becomes the hardest part of the whole journey.
- Aduro with their unique technology flipped that. They build small, simple and modular. Then, they just need to copy it.
That's why I don't think scaling will be the easiest part for
$ADUR.
The hardest part of this industry - getting that first plant standing - is the part Aduro designed around from the start.
They're really building the First-of-a-kind.