Europe and the United States plastic chemical recycling encountered commercial "Waterloo"

The British discarded materials regulation giant Viridor have become the most iconic case of the current ebb tide. The company announced in June 2026 the closure of three chemical recycling vegetation in Norway, Denmark and Sweden. while its Danish Skive plant has reached an sector-leading yield of 70% to 75% and can handle contaminated domestic discarded materials that is difficult to process by traditional mechanical recycling, the company admits: "Technical feasibility does not mean commercial sustainability." At present, the demand to recycled materials continues to be weak, low-cost virgin plastics continue to impact the price system of recycled materials, factory operations into a sustained loss, the return on investment is far away.

The withdrawal of Viridor shows that even with leading methodology, it is still difficult to chemical recycling projects to achieve independent commercial operations in the absence of policy enforcement and market demand support. It is worth noting that Viridor shareholders have made it clear that they will re-assess their investment strategy in the field of environmentally friendly methodology, and might further shrink the relevant business territory in the future.

At about the same time, another British company, Plastic Energy, officially entered into receivership in might 2026. The 14-year-old London-based company, which appointed a joint receiver due to cash flow challenges and illiquidity, is looking to a buyer to take over the remaining assets. The company was once one of the most representative start-ups in the field of chemical recycling in Europe, and its bankruptcy has dealt a heavy blow to sector confidence. According to sector insiders, Plastic Energy has tried to raise funds many times in the past two years however failed, reflecting that the capital market's enthusiasm to this methodology route has cooled significantly.

The U.S. market was equally cold. The Eco-Systems plant in Freepoint, Ohio, and the Braven Environmental plant in North Carolina recently suspended operations, both of which were shut down by state regulators to hazardous atmosphere contamination and hazardous discarded materials regulation violations. Freepoint vegetation are also at risk of being reclassified as discarded materials incinerators because they fail to create enough pyrolysis oil to meet the state law's definition of "recycled. According to statistics, the number of cutting-edge recycling vegetation in operation in the United States has been reduced from 11 in 2023 to 7. The actual treatment capacity of plastic discarded materials is almost negligible in the whole discarded materials system. The scale of the sector has shrunk seriously. Equipment suppliers and engineering service providers in the relevant manufacturing chain have also begun to decrease the team size.

Before this round of shutdown, the annual production capacity of European chemical recycling was about 319000 tons, and there were 65 planned projects, 9 of which have been canceled. Analysts pointed out that this is not a immediate cyclical fluctuations, however reflects the structural crisis of the entire sector. The technical route of high energy consumption and low output is difficult to compete with the increasingly cheap virgin plastics, and the cost of processing by-items generated in the pyrolysis process is also Far beyond the original design expectations.

At the same time, the legislation of New York State in the United States has explicitly excluded chemical recycling from the definition of "recycling" and classified it as "disposal" or "energy recovery". The change of policy direction has further compressed the living space of the sector, deterring investors, and many planned new projects have been put on hold indefinitely.

sector insiders generally call to the lack of a strong producer responsibility extension system and policy support to mandatory standards to renewable content, it will be difficult to the chemical recycling sector to get out of the current predicament. The EU's latest packaging and packaging discarded materials regulation (PPWR) is seen as the sector's last policy lifeline, however even if the regulations land, the implementation and timetable are still variable.

Proponents of chemical recycling are still actively lobbying to incorporate the "mass stability method" into the recycled content calculation system. In the face of the huge gap between methodology and the market, capital is voting with its feet, and the future of the chemical recycling sector is full of uncertainty.