At MacroCycle, we revive end-of-life plastics. We will protect the world through our circular, zero-carbon, upcycling process.

The Plastic Problem

5 MILLION+

metric tons of plastic our waters per year, even when it is “recycled”.

5%

of global CO2 emissions are associated with the plastics industry.

That is more than all of Japan’s emissions, the 5th largest CO2 emitter in the world. 23

85%

of plastic produced today, even when “recycled” ends up in our landfills, in our oceans, or it gets incinerated.

"Plastic recycling could eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels and keep plastics out of the environment, but current technologies fail to deliver either on quality, cost, selectivity, or emissions – which are critical to provide a fully Circular Plastic Economy."
– Jan, MacroCycle CTO

Mission

MacroCycle believes that chemistry holds the key to enabling fully circular plastics, made without carbon emissions. We want to protect our world through our circular, sustainable, zero-carbon upcycling process.

With the globe’s leading experts in ring-chain chemistry and MIT engineers on our team, our patented technology takes plastic and polyester waste to produce virgin-grade MacroCycle PET or polyester resins, specially crafted to fit your needs and products.

Products

Plastics are very useful materials, but their initial value to society becomes a massive burden at their end-of-life.

Our MacroCycle PET and polyester resins can meet your sustainability goals including satisfaction of PCR Regulations, elimination of landfill and ocean-bound plastics, lowered Scope 3 emissions, and no green premium.

Our proprietary process based on the synthesis of cyclic macromolecules (macrocycles) enables us to recycled PET or polyester ffrom plastic and polyester waste at 80% lower energy use than traditional processes.

This enables our technology to provide a drop-in solution without a required green premium, and much lower carbon emissions.

Technology

Recycling

Output
High Quality Plastic
Pricing
Market Rate
Energy Reduction
80%
Waste
No Land Fill

Mechanical Recycling

Output
Low Quality Plastic
Pricing
Low Cost
Energy Reduction
70%
Waste
All to Land Fill

Chemical Recycling

Output
High Quality Plastic
Pricing
High Cost (Premium)
Energy Reduction
30%
Waste
No Landfill

Recycling

Output
High Quality Plastic
Pricing
Market Rate
Energy Reduction
80%
Waste
No Land Fill

Mechanical Recycling

Output
Low Quality Plastic
Pricing
Low Cost
Energy Reduction
70%
Waste
All to Land Fill

Chemical Recycling

Output
High Quality Plastic
Pricing
High Cost (Premium)
Energy Reduction
30%
Waste
No Landfill

Fossil Fuel Based Production

Output
High Quality Plastic
Pricing
Market Rate
Energy Reduction
0%
Waste
No Landfill


Recycling

Output
High Quality Plastics
Pricing
Market Price
Energy Reduction
80%
Waste
No Landfill

Mechanical Recycling

Output
Low Quality Plastics
Pricing
Low Cost
Energy Reduction
70%
Waste
All to Landfill

Chemical Recycling

Output
High Quality Plastics
Pricing
High Cost (Premium)
Energy Reduction
30%
Waste
No Landfill

Fossil Fuel Recycling

Output
High Quality Plastics
Pricing
High Cost (Premium)
Energy
Reduction
0%
Waste
No Landfill

Meet Our Team

Co-Founders

Stwart Peña Feliz

Co-Founder, CEO

Stwart is a former ExxonMobil process engineer and holds an MBA from MIT Sloan Business School. His skill set includes manufacturing, design, and process operating experience of large-scale units, including plastic pyrolysis operations from his time at ExxonMobil. He has scaled up technologies from the bench scale and also held leadership positions at a previous climate tech startup that went on to raise a $30M Series B round.

Jan-Georg Rosenboom

Co-Founder, CTO

Dr. Jan-Georg Rosenboom is a Polymer Scientist from MIT’s Langer Lab, plastic sustainability consultant and TEDx speaker on plastic recycling. He has a PhD from ETH Zurich where he developed polymerization processes based on Ring-Opening Polymerization, where his work on PEF is currently being commercialized by SULZER. His skill set includes polymer chemistry, synthesis and analytics, life cycle assessment, process design, and kinetic simulations. He is an author on 18 scientific papers with >1000 citations, and 2 patents.

Team Members

Thanaphorn (Eam) Feinberg

Polymer Scientist

Thanaphorn is a polymer scientist with a strong background in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology with four years of experience in polymer science research from Clark University and MCPHS University. Her work focused on developing a novel polymer-based non-viral gene delivery vehicle. Her diverse background in biochemistry and pharmaceuticals adds a unique perspective to the MacroCycle team.

Edoardo Terreni

Chemical Process Engineer

Edoardo Terreni is a Chemical Engineer and is an expert in MacroCycle technology through his PhD thesis “Optimization of a New Recycling Technology for Polyesters” at the Politecnico Di Milano in Italy under the supervision of Prof. Storti and Prof. Moscatelli. He also brings industrial experience working as a process engineer at ENI, Italy’s largest petrochemical company.

Brontë McGarrah

Head of Partnership

Brontë is a leader in partnerships and government relations with a decade of experience in the cleantech sector. Prior to joining MacroCycle as Head of Partnerships, she served as a Program Manager at GoogleX in Mountain View, CA, working on plastics circularity as well as other climate-focused initiatives within the GoogleX portfolio. Brontë began her career at Greentown Labs in Somerville, MA, where she established strong ties within Boston’s cleantech ecosystem and supported startups with government relations and corporate partnerships.

Andres A. Granados Focil

Reaction Engineer

Andres is a Material Scientist and Reaction Engineer from MIT's Román-Leshkov group. He obtained a PhD from Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City, using that knowledge to then implement technologies for converting wet waste into fuels and chemicals as a Research Scientist at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. During his Post-doc at MIT, he focused on addressing new catalytic strategies for plastic waste chemical upcycling where he designed and built high-temperature and high-pressure flow reactors to achieved optimum experimental design focused on commercial scale-up. Catalysts synthesis, material characterization, analytics, reactor design and process operation of energy intensive units are within his skill set in this field.

Investors and Grant Providers

Partners & Supporters

Get to Know MacroCycle

MIT Delta v Demo Day 2023

MIT Delta v Demo Day 2023

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