How depolymerisation could enable infinite reuse of plastics

Plastic recycling is widely touted as a solution to our waste crisis – yet most plastics are still burned, buried or degraded beyond reuse. A new wave of ’chemical recycling’ technologies promises something far more radical: breaking plastics back down into their molecular building blocks and rebuilding them again and again without loss of quality. From polyester clothing to supermarket packaging, could depolymerisation finally unlock a truly circular plastics economy – or will cost, complexity and infrastructure keep it on the fringes?