In April 2026, Clean Planet Technologies (CPTech), part of the UK-based Clean Planet Group, opened a pilot facility in Sandwich, Kent. The company describes the site as the first plant globally dedicated to converting non-recyclable waste plastic into Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), a positioning that has not yet been independently audited.1
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The pilot, named the Sustainability Innovation Centre, addresses two problems that conventional infrastructure has struggled with: the share of mixed plastic waste that mechanical recycling cannot economically process, and aviation’s continued reliance on fossil kerosene.
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), global SAF production reached around 1 million tons in 2024, equivalent to about 0.3 % of total jet fuel demand and well below the level required to meet medium-term sectoral targets.2
Facility Overview
The pilot is located at Discovery Park in Sandwich, Kent. The first-generation pyrolysis reactor can process one ton of plastic input per day, with a design capacity of up to 200 tons per year.3
A smaller second-generation unit, with a 10 kg per-batch capacity, is scheduled for commissioning in August 2026 and will also support plastics-to-hydrogen and plastics-to-monomer research.3
The Kent center operates under the UK SAF Clearing House, a UK Department for Transport initiative that provides technical guidance, access to recognized testing facilities, and support through the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) qualification process required for any new aviation fuel.1
The P2SAF Process
CPTech’s proprietary Plastics-to-SAF (P2SAF) workflow couples thermal pyrolysis with downstream catalytic upgrading.
Shredded mixed plastic is heated in an oxygen-starved reactor, breaking polymer chains into a synthetic crude commonly known as plastic pyrolysis oil (PPO). A separate catalytic stage, which the company markets as SAFe Hydroprocessing, then applies hydro-cracking, hydro-isomerization, and dechlorination to convert that oil into specification-range hydrocarbons.4
The rationale for these additional steps is documented in the peer-reviewed literature. A review in Energy Conversion and Management notes that raw PPO is chemically heterogeneous and typically carries high concentrations of olefins, oxygenates, nitrogen, sulfur, halogens, and metals, components that fall outside ASTM D7566 specifications and can corrode downstream equipment or poison catalysts.5
Catalytic upgrading is therefore a technical necessity rather than an optional polish. The same review concludes that catalytic pyrolysis of waste plastic is technically feasible for aviation-range hydrocarbons, while identifying feedstock variability, catalyst selectivity, and impurity management as the principal constraints to scale-up.5
CPTech states that its hydroprocessed product is a low-sulfur fuel with lifecycle greenhouse-gas emissions approximately 70 % lower than conventional jet fuel.3 This figure is reported by the company and has not yet been published in an independent lifecycle assessment. CPTech’s patent estate, which now covers the UK, United States, and Saudi Arabia, focuses specifically on the method for upgrading low-grade, variable pyrolysis oils into specification-grade fuels.4
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Position in the SAF Landscape
The dominant SAF route today is Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids (HEFA), which converts used cooking oils, animal fats, and other waste lipids into jet fuel.
HEFA accounts for the vast majority of certified SAF supply but is constrained by the limited global volume of suitable feedstocks.6 Pyrolysis-based routes, such as P2SAF, draw on a different feedstock pool, non-recyclable mixed plastics, that does not compete with food or agricultural land.
A 2025 review in Energies positions pyrolysis-to-jet pathways as complementary rather than substitutive to bio-based routes, while noting that the underlying chemistry remains commercially less mature.6
Compared with other waste-derived routes, such as gasification combined with Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, pyrolysis is lower-temperature and more modular, but typically requires more extensive downstream cleaning to meet jet fuel specifications.5
Challenges and Limitations
Several issues separate the Kent pilot from a commercial-scale operation. The first is feedstock heterogeneity: chlorine, sulfur, and metal contaminants vary widely across mixed-plastic streams, which can shorten catalyst life and compromise product quality.5
The second is hydrogen demand. Hydroprocessing is hydrogen-intensive, and the climate benefit of the final fuel depends strongly on whether that hydrogen is produced via electrolysis using low-carbon electricity, from natural gas with carbon capture, or from unabated fossil sources.
Techno-economic studies indicate that pyrolysis-derived jet fuel can, in principle, be cost-competitive with HEFA, but margins are sensitive to hydrogen prices, feedstock acquisition costs, and plant utilization.5
Certification is a further barrier. Pyrolysis-derived jet fuel is not yet covered by an approved annex under ASTM D7566, the standard governing blended SAF.6 CPTech’s progression through the UK SAF Clearing House will help generate the engine-rig and combustion data required for inclusion, but the timeline remains uncertain.1 Until certification is granted, the fuel cannot be blended with conventional Jet A-1 for commercial flights. The company has not announced a date for its first commercial plant, indicating that the Kent site is a demonstration and qualification asset rather than a revenue-generating refinery.3
Regulatory and Industry Context
Policy demand for SAF is rising on both sides of the Channel. The UK SAF Mandate, which entered force in January 2025, requires that at least 2 % of jet fuel used in the UK be SAF in 2025, rising to 10 % by 2030 and 22 % by 2040.7
The mandate caps HEFA’s contribution and introduces a sub-target for power-to-liquid fuels, an explicit attempt to encourage feedstock diversification of the kind P2SAF could contribute to.
In parallel, the European Union’s ReFuelEU Aviation regulation sets a minimum SAF blend of 2 % in 2025, rising to 70 % by 2050, with separate sub-mandates for synthetic aviation fuels.8 Both frameworks support a portfolio approach to SAF feedstocks rather than reliance on bio-lipids alone.
UK waste policy is also moving toward reducing landfill and incineration of mixed plastics, providing an indirect tailwind for waste-conversion technologies, though there is no national mandate that specifically credits plastic-to-fuel projects.
Read More: The Most Notable Developments in Sustainable Aviation Fuel
Outlook
The Kent pilot is one of the earliest operational examples of a plastic-to-SAF conversion route, but its industrial significance depends on three factors that remain unresolved: ASTM certification, independent lifecycle verification, and scaling from the current one ton per day to commercial volumes measured in tens of thousands of tons per year.
If these can be addressed, P2SAF could become a complementary feedstock pathway within a supply chain that currently leans heavily on HEFA. If they cannot, the project will function more as a qualification facility than as a step toward commercial production.
For the near term, the value of the Sandwich site is methodological: it provides the data, fuel samples and process experience needed to test whether mixed plastic waste can be turned into certified aviation fuel at meaningful scale.
References and Further Reading
- Clean Planet Group. (2026). Sustainability Innovation Centre. https://www.cleanplanet.com/sustainability-innovation-centre
- International Air Transport Association. (2024, December 10). Disappointingly slow growth in SAF production. IATA Pressroom. https://www.iata.org/en/pressroom/2024-releases/2024-12-10-03/
- Baker, S. (2026, May 5). ‘World-first’ plant converting plastic waste to SAF opens in UK. The Chemical Engineer. https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/world-first-plant-converting-plastic-waste-to-saf-opens-in-uk/
- Clean Planet Group. (2026). Technologies. https://www.cleanplanet.com/technologies
- Hussain, I., Ganiyu, S. A., Alasiri, H., & Alhooshani, K. (2022). A state-of-the-art review on waste plastics-derived aviation fuel: Unveiling the heterogeneous catalytic systems and techno-economy feasibility of catalytic pyrolysis. Energy Conversion and Management, 274, Article 116433. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0196890422012110?via%3Dihub
- Detsios, N., Theodoraki, S., Maragoudaki, L., Atsonios, K., Grammelis, P., & Orfanoudakis, N. G. (2025). Sustainable aviation fuels: A comprehensive review of production pathways, environmental impacts, lifecycle assessment, and certification frameworks. Energies, 18(14), Article 3705. https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/14/3705
- UK Department for Transport. (2025). Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Mandate. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sustainable-aviation-fuel-mandate
- European Union. (2023). Regulation (EU) 2023/2405 of the European Parliament and of the Council on ensuring a level playing field for sustainable air transport (ReFuelEU Aviation). EUR-Lex. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/2405/oj
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