What is chemical recycling?

Chemical recycling (sometimes also called molecular recycling) refers to a suite of technologies including chemical, thermal, catalytic, bio/enzymatic, or other molecular processes to break down used plastics into their basic chemical building blocks. Chemical recycling offers the potential to compliment traditional, mechanical recycling by providing a pathway toward circularity for mixed plastics, for complex/multi-material packaging formats such as flexible film and bags (HDPE #2 or LDPE #4), and for resins such as polypropylene (#5) and polystyrene (#6) which are not widely recycled mechanically.