Opportunities for chemical recycling to benefit from waste policy changes in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Increased awareness in the United Kingdom around the issues of dealing with plastic waste, particularly non-recyclable plastics, has created political pressure to find new ways to manage this waste stream. As a result, the UK government recently convened consultations around adapting the national plastic waste management strategy in light of curtailed overseas plastic recycling. In this work, we consider the potential role that chemical recycling, such as gasification and pyrolysis, may have to play in the context of plastic waste valorization, and assess the policies and market conditions that would be required to make chemical recycling a feasible means by which to manage difficult to recycle plastic waste in the UK.