Page 52 - Plastics News April 2025

TECHNOLOGY NEWS
Top 10 Breakthrough Technologies
for Plastic Recycling
he buildup of plastic waste throughout
global environments represents a ma-
Tjor worldwide crisis because millions of
tons of plastic materials settle in both landfills
and marine habitats and ecological systems.
The recycling efforts that address plastic waste
lack effectiveness because of destroyable ma-
terials and contamination among other factors.
Technological developments from recent years
transformed plastic recycling into an operation
that delivers effective results at reduced costs
along with environmentally sustainable practic-
es. The future of plastic recycling demonstrates
ten groundbreaking technologies which we ana-
lyze in this article.
1. Chemical Recycling (Depolymerization)
Depolymerization or chemical recycling trans-
forms waste plastic into the molecules from
which it originated so industry can create new
52 PLASTICS NEWS
plastics with original qualities. The method en-
sures plastic quality along with retention by en-
suring full integrity of materials which dramati-
cally enhances the potential of circular economy
models.
Key Benefits:
Converts plastics back to virgin-quality materials
Reduces dependency on fossil fuels
Can recycle mixed and contaminated plastics
Challenges:
High energy requirements
Scalability issues
2. Enzymatic Recycling
Specialized enzymes discovered by scientists al-
low the breakdown of plastics including PET into
their fundamental raw materials. PETase works
as an enzyme to break down PET plastic into its
basic structures thus enabling genuine closed-
loop recycling.
April 2025