9th November 2020, – The European chemical industry’s virtual exhibition ‘Chemical Recycling: Making Plastics Circular’ is online. The exhibition features 17 chemical recycling initiatives from a range of Cefic member companies and showcases how chemical recycling technologies can help to make plastics circular. Chemical recycling technologies are complementary solutions to existing mechanical recycling as they can treat mixed or contaminated plastic waste that would otherwise be incinerated or sent to landfill. The virtual exhibition offers the visitors the opportunity to learn about the chemical recycling projects the chemical industry is currently carrying out and that are already capable of successfully transforming plastic waste into new consumer products like food packaging, refrigerator parts, mattresses, carpets, and dashboards in cars.
Chemical recycling technologies can break down plastics and transform them into valuable secondary raw materials to produce new chemicals and plastics of similar quality to those made from fossil resources. In a context where 85% of the 30 million tonnes of plastic waste collected every year in Europe still ends up in landfill or is incinerated or exported, chemical recycling technologies can be an important means to fight the leakage of plastic waste into the environment, especially in oceans. In addition, chemical recycling has an overall lower carbon footprint compared to today’s end-of-life practices of incineration and landfilling.
Chemical recycling still faces some challenges: to be successful, it must be supported by a complete enabling policy framework, an open investment environment and a competitive economic model. Today, chemical recycling processes exist at a demonstration level and need to be expanded. The chemical industry is determined to increase the amount of recycled plastic by scaling up the chemical recycling technologies.
Want to learn more about the existing technologies routes of chemical recycling, and how it can increase resource efficiency and help to close the loop in the transition to a circular economy for plastics?