ECOS | Environmental Coalition on Standards

14 July 2020

Joint NGO Statement – Chemical Recycling: 7 Steps To Effectively Legislate On Chemical Recycling

The concept of ‘chemical recycling’ has been promoted by the industry for decades, including as a solution to the current plastic crisis. The industry has been claiming that chemical recycling technologies are able to treat plastic waste that is currently not recovered through mechanical recycling, thus enabling an entirely circular economy in plastic. Yet, a recent research review highlights the limits of these technologies to deal with plastic waste (such as the need for a pure feedstock, the need for further treatment of by-products, high loss of feedstock carbon in the process, etc.) and the high energy consumption requirement of these processes.

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