The Future of Chemical Recycling - Speakers Biographies

James Bull, Tesco

James is a change professional with a 25 year track record of delivering transformation initiatives across the Tesco business, currently leading the Packaging team; 
He is committed to removal, reduction, reuse and recycling of packaging used across the Tesco global supply chain, ensuring they only use packaging with a purpose and everything they use can be reused or recycled.

Tesco are focused on accelerating the exit of hard to recycle materials, increasing the use of recycled materials and helping customers make environmentally responsible decisions. They are working with industry to influence the improvement of retrieval and recycling in the UK moving towards progressively closed loop systems for packaging.

Adrian Griffiths, Recycling Technologies

Adrian is the founder and CEO of Recycling Technologies Ltd. He is dedicated to creating value from plastic waste globally; “You can help solve the problem of plastic in our oceans, by making waste plastic valuable on land” Adrian says. Adrian graduated as an engineer from Imperial College, London and spent many years in the automotive, aerospace and nuclear sectors. Prior to founding Recycling Technologies in 2011 Adrian co-founded two successful UK businesses: OEE Consulting and Vendigital. He is an experienced business leader within the manufacturing sector, a Chartered Engineer with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College.

Wim Hoenderdaal, PETcore Europe

Wim leads the Special industry Group PET Monomer Recycling in PETcore Europe and has several consultancy assignments. 

He specialises  in PET polymer, processing, applications and recycling. He is an independent consultant at PETsense and focuses on PET recycling, more specifically on Monomer Recycling and Depolymerization. 

His previous positions include roles as Technical Manager, Market Development Manager, Recycling and Sustainability Manager at Indorama Ventures, Eastman Chemical, AKZO, and DSM.

Jens Kathmann, Styrenics Circular Solutions

Jens Kathmann is Secretary General, Styrenics Circular Solutions, since October 2018.  Previously, he served as Vice President Standard Products EMEA for INEOS Styrolution with over 30 years of experience in the chemical industry, including BASF, in several managerial assignments in Asia and Europe. Jens studied Applied Sciences at the University of Mannheim/Ludwigshafen.

Dr Christian Krueger, BASF

Christian is holding a PhD in chemistry and started his industrial career at BASF in R&D, where he developed specialty polymers for several industries. After he gained profound experiences with customers in a business development position. In 2012 he joined the Sustainability team at BASF as analyst, where he applied and further developed sustainability tools like e.g. LCA and Eco-Efficiency Analysis. After he worked as a consultant in the corporate strategy unit, where he supported several business units implementing sustainability into BASF business processes. Now he is focusing as an expert on developing circular economy by studying the environmental impacts and standardizing / certifying the mass balance approach. He is author of several publications and represents BASF in technical expert groups like ISO, associations and certification schemes.

Professor John McGeehan, Portsmouth University

John McGeehan is a Professor of Structural Biology focused on the global challenge of plastic pollution and leads a team of scientists researching natural enzyme discovery and engineering. He completed his degree in Microbiology (Glasgow University) and PhD (MRC Virology, Glasgow) before moving south to Portsmouth following a short postdoc in York. He spent two years at the EMBL in Grenoble, developing structural biology methods at the ESRF and retuned to Portsmouth University in 2007 as a RCUK Fellow, where he set up his group in X-ray crystallography. He was appointed to Reader in 2012 and Professor in 2016.

Their recent work revealed the detailed workings of an enzyme that can digest polyethylene terephthalate (PET).  A biological catalyst that can break PET down into its original building blocks opens new opportunities for recycling towards a circular plastics economy.

Their work on PET-digesting enzymes has been widely covered in the media. The group is rapidly expanding due to a £6m grant from Research England which has allowed the recruitment of 15 additional researchers for the new Centre for Enzyme Innovation at Portsmouth University. The focus on of the group remains the engineering of biological catalysis for the breakdown of natural and synthetic polymers.

Carlos Monreal, Plastic Energy

Carlos has significant experience as a CEO. Engineer by training he has been a serial entrepreneur for more than 30 years and was the founder and CEO of Inlandgeo, a company supplying high tech electronic instruments and turnkey solutions in multiple industries for 24 years, and later President of Abasol for seven years. This company offered consultancy and EPC solutions on renewable energy and efficiency.

Carlos is also founder and CEO of Greenland Capital, a company with the vision to identify and develop disruptive technologies that provide sustainable and economical solutions to the growing challenges of waste and water management and alternative energy management.

Chris Wilson, ReNew ELP

Chris has worked in waste management and recycling since 2002 in a variety of commercial and operational roles. Initially working as a Commercial Manager with a regional waste management contractor he then went on to be General Manager of the UK’s first national WEEE collection and reprocessing business.

Chris then worked as a Technical Advisor with a PFI bid team developing recycling and EfW solutions for several local authorities. Moving back to a regional waste contractor, Chris was employed as Recycling Director responsible for WEEE recycling, MRF operations and HWRCs.

Starting in 2014, Chris worked as Business Development Manager for Europe’s largest polythene recycler and was responsible for sourcing material to feed four UK manufacturing sites. Feedstock suppliers included C&I waste collectors, manufacturing facilities and agricultural/horticultural businesses.

In March 2020, Chris joined chemical recycler ReNew ELP as Commercial Contracts Manager. ReNew ELP are developing a chemical recycling facility at the Wilton site near Redcar using the Cat-HTR technology, which involves using high pressure steam to crack the polymer chains in plastic waste and produce products that are used to replace fossil sourced feedstock in the manufacture of new polymers.