Page 59 - Plastics News Issue June 2025

BUSINESS NEWS

Chemical recycling requires

€400B investment to become competitive

Porter, head of Bain & Company’s global Chemi-
cals practice.

The consultancy’s analysis assumed that costs
related to conversion of naphtha to polyolefins
stays constant during the period of the analysis,
as well as assumed feedstock costs, except for
sorting.

“Getting to cost parity] would take at least 20 to
30 years and by then recycled plastic would ac-
count for approximately 20-30% of total plastic
ecycling polyolefins via pyrolysis twice as demand,” Porter added.
expensive as producing virgin polymers
Rin Europe, says new report The 20% to 30% market share of recycled plas-
tics is similar to the penetration levels seen in
Chemical recycling may achieve cost parity with other industries, such as solar and wind energy,
virgin plastics production in 20 to 30 years in when they reached their tipping points against
Europe, a new report by US-based consulting incumbent technologies.
firm Bain & Company has revealed.

Recycling polyolefins via pyrolysis is currently
twice as expensive as producing virgin poly-
mers in Europe, according to the consultancy’s
analysis.

The report focusses solely on pyrolysis, as-
sumes a fuel-exempt mass balance approach,
and analyses only the European market.

“Our analysis shows that chemical recycling
could become competitive with virgin produc-
tion once cumulative global volume reaches
650 million metric tons of polyolefins recycled
through pyrolysis, assuming a virgin price of Getting to cost parity would require cumulative
€1,250 per metric ton and depending on gate global capital expenditures of at minimum €400
fees and broader market conditions,” said Mark billion in a base case, at a cumulative cost pre-

June 2025 PLASTICS NEWS 59