Plastic Waste Utilization via Chemical Recycling: Approaches, Limitations, and the Challenges Ahead

Abstract

Chemical recycling offers the opportunity to foster the transition towards a circular economy for plastics as a complementary strategy for mechanical recycling. For the implementation of chemical recycling technologies, there are still significant challenges ahead that – besides the definition of binding legal frameworks – need for intensified research: knowledge-based methods for both the identification of suitable process technologies considering decentralized waste conditions and the design of conversion steps and downstream processing are strongly needed for process development and process evaluation.