REDES4VALUE advances circular solutions for discarded fishing nets
The REDES4VALUE project is transforming abandoned polyamide fishing nets into high-value industrial materials, addressing one of the most persistent sources of marine pollution while enabling scalable circular economy applications.
Led by a consortium including AIMPLAS · Technological Institute of Plastics, UBE, Ziknes, and the University of Valencia, the initiative applies advanced mechanical and chemical recycling technologies to recover and repolymerise nylon waste into materials comparable to virgin polyamides.
Key developments:
Successful recovery of polyamide monomers with >95% purity at lab scale and >80% at pilot scale
Production of recycled nylon suitable for packaging films, agricultural covers, automotive components, and large-format 3D printing
Validation of reactive extrusion, hydrothermal depolymerisation, and solvolysis processes for complex and degraded waste streams
A critical enabler of the project is its collaboration with Sea2See, which supplies recovered fishing nets from Ghana, ensuring traceability and reinforcing a fully circular value chain from waste collection to industrial application.
Funded by Instituto Valenciano de Competitividad e Innovación IVACE +i (Generalitat Valenciana) with co-financing from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), REDES4VALUE demonstrates how chemical recycling can close the loop on difficult-to-recycle plastics, reduce dependence on virgin raw materials, and support industry-ready sustainability solutions.
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