Chemical recycling, also called advanced recycling, covers technologies that break plastic down to its chemical building blocks instead of simply re-melting it. The main routes are pyrolysis, which turns mixed plastic into oil, gasification, and depolymerisation, which returns polymers such as PET to their monomers.
Its appeal is that it can handle mixed or contaminated waste that mechanical recycling cannot, and the output can match virgin quality. The trade-offs are higher energy use, higher cost and lower yield, and recycled content is usually allocated through mass balance. Most recycled plastic in India and worldwide is still produced mechanically, and the two routes are best seen as complementary.
CII Sustainable Plastic Packaging Awards 2026
Lucro took home the Excellence award for Incorporation of Recycled Content in both rigid and flexible packaging at the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Sustainable Plastic Packaging Awards 2026:
Post-consumer plastic, back on the shelf as bottles and pouches. The jury noticed.
