Figure 1.

Illustration of an envisioned plastics value‐chain that could enhance the transition to circularity. Currently most plastic is incinerated or landfilled (bottom left), because collection and sorting produce very contaminated and mixed plastic‐waste streams. Better techniques for collection and sorting lead to streams of plastic waste that can be recycled by the various chemical recycling methods. These routes are still going to be complemented by traditional mechanical recycling for the purest steams of a single polymer. The shares that each of the techniques corresponded to in 2016 bottom left of the waste processing method and prediction for 2030 are shown at the bottom right of the waste processing method. These values are based on the McKinsey report.2 The plastic objects are sold to the consumer and after its life cycle collected again for sorting to undergo another recycle.