Chemical Recycling

Chemical recycling is a group of processes that use chemical reactions, heat, solvents or catalysts to break waste materials into simpler chemical components, monomers or feedstocks that can be used to manufacture new materials. Unlike mechanical recycling, which generally preserves the material’s basic structure, chemical recycling changes it at a molecular level. In textiles, it can be used to recover components such as polyester or cellulose from garments, including some blended fabrics that are difficult to recycle mechanically. Technologies include depolymerization, dissolution, pyrolysis and gasification. Its environmental performance depends on factors such as energy use, process efficiency, feedstock quality and the end use of recovered materials.