HOW DOES RECYCLING WORK?
Recycling technologies can be classified
under two categories:
What do physical and chemical recycling have in common?
Both processes include pre-treatment steps like sorting, washing, and grinding to enable an efficient plastic recycling process and in order to fulfil the properties of the intended end-applications.
Chemical recycling has the potential to build upon mechanical recycling processes if it can treat the waste which cannot currently be mechanically recycled into high-quality plastics. Achieving a true complementarity of these technologies would enable further reduction in the dependency on virgin raw materials and their associated CO2 emissions.
Did you know that mechanical recycling covers over 99% of the total plastics recycling capacity in Europe?
Take a look at the following factsheets to learn more about the most common plastic waste streams in Europe and how they are recycled.