Recycling

After decades of gradual change, the EU’s updated End-of-Life Vehicles Directive drives a fundamental shift in automotive design and manufacturing.

Plastic recycling in the United Kingdom faces persistent structural difficulties. Although household participation is high, overall recovery rates remain well below national and international targets.

As artificial intelligence transforms the identification, sorting, and recovery of plastics, regulators are racing to keep pace with a technology poised to redefine the future of recycling.

Plastics emit 3% of global CO₂. Aligning the value chain—via recycling, clean tech, and circularity—can cut emissions up to 90% by 2050.

K 2025 preview unveils cutting-edge plastics tech: low-carbon materials, advanced recycling, smart thermoplastics, and EV-ready polycarbonates.

EPR laws across US states apply different material definitions, recyclability criteria, and PCR targets, making packaging design a key factor in determining compliance fees.

Some microorganisms can “eat” plastic by using it as a carbon and energy source. These tiny organisms could inspire the recycling methods of tomorrow.

Carbon black pigments blocked NIR sorting, hindering black plastic recycling, but new industry innovations are now solving the issue.

Shrink films made in Colombia set a new benchmark for sustainable packaging, delivering circular economy benefits without sacrificing quality or appearance.

A new large-scale recycling method uses mechanochemical devulcanization to recover and reuse EPDM rubber, enabling circularity without performance loss.

A new one-step, room-temperature extraction method enables accurate, non-targeted quantification of Non-Intentionally Added Substances (NIAS) in Polystyrene.

As the EU rewrites the rules on packaging, engineers face a complex task: making plastics recyclable, compliant, and competitive by 2030.