In France and several other EU countries, the mechanical recycling rate for plastic waste is levelling off. Do chemical recycling processes, by potentially expanding the range of "recyclable" materials, offer a short- and medium-term way of increasing these recovery rates? This is what the RECORD study sets out to answer. Through a review of the main chemical recycling processes and facilities: solvolysis, dissolution, depolymerisation, gasification and slow pyrolysis, a group of international experts comment on the trends, obstacles and bottlenecks. The "energy" route is seen as having greater development potential than the "return to matter" route. However, the development prospects for these processes seem uncertain, and they are currently severely handicapped by high costs (low capacity and technological complexity of the units).
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