Welcome to the July edition of the Circular Digest.
This month I'm excited to bring you an interview with Fabio Lamberti, a UK-based R&D Scientist and Senior Development Chemist at AquaPak Polymers. We dive deep into chemical recycling, the benefits and challenges and its role in the circular economy. ⬇️
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Strategy: At London Climate Action Week, the topic of conversation was the circular economy as a competitive advantage, not just a compliance use case. Mary Creagh MP, Minister for Nature told the audience that businesses than embed the circular economy not only safeguard the planet, but future-proof their businesses. In the UK, it's estimated that the circular economy could provide the economy a £25bn boost. This reframing of the circular economy is a strategic way to obtain board buy-in.
Policy: The new Intergovernmental Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution has been adopted. This panel, similar to the IPCC on climate change and IPBES on biodiversity will aim to confront the toxic legacy of pollution that jeopardizes ecosystems, economies, and human health. The goal of the panel is to equip policymakers with the best available science and knowledge to make informed decisions and develop effective policies through global governance. Like IPCC catalyzed climate action, do you think this will catalyze action on pollution?
Innovation: NREL, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and the University of Portsmouth, have reached a breakthrough in increasing the viability and scalability of enzyme-based recycling, using PETase. This can break down PET, even from contaminated or coloured waste streams. The team has achieved this by modifying reaction conditions to reduce expensive chemicals by more than 99%, reduce annual running costs by 74%, and reduce energy use by 65%.
Research: British Standards Institution finds a 'trust gap' between perception and reality of circular economy products. The survey demonstrated that although people support for reuse and repair, many have doubts about the quality of products, which can affect uptake and scalability.
Action This
Engaging your value chain on the circular economy can have an exponential effect. You engage your suppliers, your suppliers engage their suppliers and so on! The first step to this is to identify the suppliers for engagement. You can do this a number of ways, and most likely a combination of them. You can assess your suppliers impacts & dependencies on climate and nature. You can engage suppliers who have leverage over other suppliers. Perhaps you want to engage suppliers active in the most polluting stage of a product's lifecycle. Or maybe you approach this by assessing procurement spend.
Diving Deep into Chemical Recycling and it's Role in the Circular Economy
With Fabio Lamberti, Senior Development Chemist at AquaPak Polymers
What is chemical recycling and what are the different types?
To understand chemical recycling, it’s helpful to think of a polymer as a long string of "monomer" beads. Traditional mechanical recycling melts the plastic, keeping the polymer strings intact but loosens the bonds between them. This process works, but the polymer chains degrade with each cycle, reducing the plastic's quality. Chemical recycling is a more advanced process that breaks these polymer strings back down into their original monomer building blocks. This allows for the creation of new polymers with quality identical to virgin materials, enabling a true closed-loop system.
The main types of chemical recycling include depolymerization, which breaks down polymers like PET into their original monomers; thermal cracking (pyrolysis), which uses high heat on plastics like PE and PP to create smaller hydrocarbons for new plastics or fuels; gasification, which uses very high temperatures to produce a synthesis gas; and solvent-based purification, which dissolves a target polymer to separate it from contaminants.
What is mass balance and how is it used in chemical recycling?
Mass balance is an accounting framework used when chemically recycled and virgin feedstocks are mixed. Since it's impossible to physically separate the recycled molecules from the new ones once combined, this approach tracks the exact amount of certified recycled material put into the system. If 10% of the feedstock is from recycled plastic, then 10% of the final product can be certified and sold as having "recycled content".
How does chemical recycling compare to traditional mechanical recycling?
Energy Consumption: Mechanical recycling generally uses less energy. Chemical recycling often requires high temperatures and pressures, making it more energy-intensive.
Environmental Impact: For clean, single-type plastic streams, mechanical recycling has a lower carbon footprint. However, chemical recycling can process contaminated or mixed plastics that would otherwise go to landfill or incineration, providing a significant environmental benefit for those specific waste streams.
Output & Recyclate Quality: Mechanical recycling degrades plastic quality over time, leading to downcycling. In contrast, chemical recycling can break polymers down into their basic building blocks, which can then be used to create new plastics of virgin-equivalent quality, suitable for high-spec applications like food packaging.
Would you view mechanical recycling as a competing or complementary process?
They are fundamentally complementary. An ideal waste strategy is hierarchical: mechanical recycling should always be the first choice for clean, well-sorted waste as it is less energy-intensive. Chemical recycling perfectly complements this by providing a solution for the mixed, contaminated, and degraded plastics that mechanical methods cannot handle. Used together, they allow for maximum resource recovery.
What are the benefits of chemical recycling?
The primary advantages are its ability to process complex, hard-to-recycle materials like multi-layer films and contaminated plastics rejected by mechanical systems, and to produce feedstock pure enough for sensitive applications like food and medical-grade packaging. By creating a circular path for waste, it lessens the demand for virgin fossil-based plastic and is a critical tool for diverting large volumes of waste from landfills and incineration.
What are the limitations or challenges associated with chemical recycling?
Despite its promise, there are several challenges. Many processes are energy-intensive and require significant capital investment, making economic viability difficult. The technologies themselves are still maturing and face challenges when scaling up to handle unpredictable, real-world waste streams. The process still relies on robust infrastructure for collecting and sorting waste, and requires transparent and strict certification of accounting methods, like mass balance, to avoid greenwashing.
What role should chemical recycling play in a broader strategy for reducing plastic waste?
Chemical recycling should be seen as a critical, but secondary, pillar in a multi-tiered strategy. The top priority is always to reduce plastic consumption and design products for reuse and recyclability. The second priority is to maximize mechanical recycling for clean waste streams. Chemical recycling’s role is to fill the gap, providing an essential solution for the complex, contaminated, or degraded plastics that cannot be handled otherwise. It is a necessary tool for achieving circularity, but not a substitute for upstream reduction.
How is AquaPak Polymers supporting the transition to the circular economy?
AquaPak Polymers contributes to the circular economy by creating water-soluble, biodegradable polymers that do not leave behind microplastics. For example, currently, most coated paper/cardboard is coated with PE or PP. When recycled, the fibre recovery is low and can leave behind nasty residues. When AquaPak polymers coat paper, the polymer dissolves away during recycling, allowing for a higher and purer recovery of the paper fibres. For single-use applications like wet wipes, products made from the material can be disposed of, dissolve in water, and eventually biodegrade into carbon dioxide and water.
The world's first fully kerbside recyclable paper crisp packet was launched earlier this year by The British Crisp Co. This award-winning packaging was the result of a collaboration involving Aquapak Polymers and took 4 years of trialling.
How do you respond to criticism that chemical recycling may detract from efforts to reduce 'hard to recycle' plastics?
This concern is valid, as chemical recycling could be used as an excuse to continue producing complex plastics. However, it should not be seen as a license to continue problematic packaging design. The solution is a policy hierarchy that prioritizes reduction and redesign first, using regulations and incentives to push producers toward simpler, mono-material, and reusable packaging. Chemical recycling should then be positioned as a backstop technology for legacy waste and unavoidably complex materials, supporting a circular economy without distracting from reduction goals.
Fabio Lamberti is a UK‑based polymer scientist with a Master’s in Chemistry and a PhD in Chemical Engineering. He focuses on practical, sustainable solutions to combat the plastic pollution crisis, whether that’s improving recycling processes, or designing innovative materials. His understanding of chemistry and engineering helps him tackle these challenges with clarity and a hands‑on approach.
Recycling of Bioplastics: Routes and Benefits - Read this scientific paper written by Fabio Lamberti (alongside L. A. Román-Ramírez and J. Wood) on the optimum routes to recycle bioplastics. Many companies have substituted fossil-based plastics to bioplastics, to reduce carbon emissions and microplastics. However, it's vital that the infrastructure for the waste management, including recycling, of these bioplastics exist to prevent them being landfilled or incinerated.
What did you think of this edition of Circular Digest? If you have any thoughts, questions, or ideas for future content, reply to this email. 😊
See you next month!
Kayleigh
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