To deal with recycling plastics it is necessary to understand that plastics are made from oil or petroleum and produced through a polymerization process.  Earlier forms of dealing with waste plastics involved mechanical recycling which involved sorting, grinding, separating, washing, melting, and then converting it back to granulated recycled plastic.  But because many plastic items include multiple types of polymers, multiple layers of plastic, or are contaminated with food and grime it is often too difficult or expensive to recycle them mechanically. Instead, they are incinerated or sent to landfills.

To overcome the difficulties with mechanical recycling, the process of chemical recycling was developed, whereby several processes — dissolution, depolymerization, conversion — are used to convert the chemical structure of the waste and make the plastic able to be reused as raw materials for making more plastics. Such methods are called “chemical recycling” or advanced recycling.

Unfortunately recent analyses indicate that the technology is not working and continues to threaten the climate and human health. There are fewer chemical recycling plants and they are operating at reduced capacity and even if all the plants were operating at full capacity, they would process only 1.2% of all U.S. plastic waste. And most are in either communities with lower-than-average income or higher-than-average communities of color.  Moreover, hazardous wastes produced by chemical recycling include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), dioxins and furans, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and heavy metals.  See Beyond Plastics.

Finally chemical recycling does not address the fundamental problem: the need to reduce how much plastic is produced in the first place.

Some further ideas to explore on chemical Recycling 

What percentage of plastic is subjected to chemical recycling in your local or regional area?

What percentage of plastic is subjected to mechanical recycling in the same local or regional area?

What percentage of plastic is landfilled in the same local or national area?

Sources:

Beyond Plastics & International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), REPORT | Chemical Recycling: A Dangerous Deception (October 2023). bit.ly/3ZvaFri

Beyond Plastics, Chemical Recycling: A Dangerous Deception: Why Chemical Recycling Won’t Solve the Plastic Pollution Problem.  bit.ly/4g2LkKX

Earthday.org, End Plastics.  Chemical Recycling: Savior or Saboteur? bit.ly/49c5vDO

Plastics Europe, Chemical Recycling bit.ly/41fjHKF