Chemical recycling has the potential to play an important role in closing plastic cycles. This is because it can be used to break down non-mechanically recyclable plastic waste in such a way that raw materials are created that can be used to produce new plastics. However, questions of ecological assessment and economic viability still need to be clarified. Within the eleven-month project, the scientists systematically examined the conditions for a transformation to circular plastics using pyrolysis processes in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) by means of an implementation study.
This study includes in particular the estimation of the current and future quantities of plastic waste available for chemical recycling in NRW and the resulting economic and ecological assessment of a pyrolysis plant with a capacity of 50,000 tonnes of plastic waste per year in NRW.
The study was carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT, the Wuppertal Institute and CarbonMinds.