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(Image: JRC). (Image: JRC). A recent study by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) assesses the economic prospects of chemical plastic recycling in the European Union. The focus is on the level of technological development, production and investment costs, as well as the regulatory and market conditions under which such processes could be operated economically.
The report “Economic viability of chemical recycling - Current and future perspectives” (107 pages, see annex) was written by Pierre Gaudillat, Robert Marschinski and Hans Saveyn. Published July 2026. The analysis describes the status of the year 2025 and focuses in particular on solvolysis and pyrolysis, which are currently among the most technically and industrially relevant chemical recycling processes.
Chemical recycling includes different process paths
Under chemical recycling, the report summarizes processes in which plastic discarded materials is broken down into chemical raw materials, intermediate items or molecular building blocks. These substances can then be applied again as starting material to the production of plastics.
In contrast to mechanical recycling, the material is not only sorted, crushed, melted and reprocessed. Instead, the polymer structure is chemically changed or split. As a result, discarded materials streams which are suitable to mechanical recycling only to a limited extent because of their composition, contamination or combination of materials are also to be developed.
However, the term does not refer to a uniform methodology. The processes differ considerably in terms of the types of plastic that can be applied, the standards to discarded materials condition, the resulting items, the energy standards and the technical maturity. A general evaluation of “chemical recycling” is therefore only possible to a limited extent. Economic statements must be related to specific processes, starting materials and product paths.
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