Automotive shredder residues (ASR)—a mix of plastics, films, foams, and paints—are typically too complex for mechanical recycling and often end up incinerated. In this pilot, the partners successfully processed these waste streams through gasification, a form of chemical recycling, to generate synthesis gas for producing new materials.
The recycled feedstock was then used to manufacture steering wheel foam—a test case for future circular components.
“Pilot projects like these allow us to evaluate how we can further develop the circular economy as a sustainability field at Porsche and anchor chemical recycling in our long-term strategy,” said Dr. Robert Kallenberg, Head of Sustainability at Porsche AG, in a company statement.
For the first time, fossil feedstocks were fully replaced by a blend of automotive waste and biomass. Using its integrated production network, BASF converted this recycled material into polyurethane formulations through a mass balance approach, certified under systems such as ISCC PLUS and REDcert².
“At BASF, we coordinate our sustainability efforts along three steps—make, use, and recycle,” said Dr. Martin Jung, President of BASF’s Performance Materials division. “Complementary technologies such as gasification and pyrolysis are essential to expanding the circular economy and reducing the plastic waste that still ends up in landfills or incinerators.”
BEST’s advanced gasification system converts mixed waste and biomass at high temperatures into synthetic crude oil (syncrude), a precursor for producing new plastics.
“In our plant, we’ve previously converted biomass such as wood or straw into chemical raw materials,” explained Dr. Matthias Kuba, Area Manager for Syngas Platform Technologies at BEST GmbH in Vienna. “This project marks the first time complex automotive waste was transformed into valuable synthetic crude alongside biomass.”
As automakers face growing EU and U.S. requirements for recycled content, scalable solutions like gasification could accelerate the transition to circular manufacturing and defossilized supply chains.
