physical recycling has hit a development bottleneck, while chemical recycling has officially entered large-scale commercial operation. Targeting hard-to-recyclable waste such as flexible packaging, composite films and contaminated mixed plastics, chemical recycling decomposes polymer macromolecules into small molecules through cracking, alcoholysis and depolymerization technologies, which can then be repolymerized into virgin-grade plastics.
Ten-thousand-ton production facilities invested by Sinopec and Aerospace Environmental Technology have been put into operation one after another. Waste plastic films can be converted into recycled plastic oil or food-grade rPET, raising product value by 2 to 3 times. Supported by favorable policies including income tax reductions for recycled plastic enterprises and carbon accounting incentives, chemical recycling is filling the final gap in the flexible packaging circular economy system.