Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

On technological solutions for recycling of recycling of polymer waste: A review

This paper is not directly about microplastics; it reviews technological approaches to recycling polymer waste — mechanical, chemical, and energy-based methods — and analyzes their economic and environmental trade-offs. Better plastic recycling technology is relevant to microplastic prevention insofar as it reduces the amount of plastic that degrades into environmental microplastic particles.

2024 E3S Web of Conferences 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Current Advances and Challenges in Chemical Recycling of Polymeric Materials

This review examines current advances and remaining challenges in chemical recycling of polymeric materials as an alternative to mechanical recycling, which degrades material properties with repeated cycling. The authors discuss the high efficiency and simpler preprocessing requirements of chemical recycling methods against a backdrop of approximately 150 million metric tonnes of annual global plastic waste generation.

2023 Preprints.org 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Mechanical Recycling of Thermoplastics: A Review of Key Issues

This review covers the key steps and challenges in mechanical recycling of thermoplastics, the most widely used industrial recycling method. Researchers discuss sorting technologies, decontamination processes, and how different types of plastics degrade during recycling. The study highlights strategies for improving the quality of recycled commodity plastics, engineering polymers, and bio-sourced materials to support the transition toward a circular economy.

2023 Waste 63 citations
Article Tier 2

Are Reliable and Emerging Technologies Available for Plastic Recycling in a Circular Economy?

This review examines the current landscape of plastic recycling technologies -- including mechanical, thermal, chemical, and biological depolymerization methods such as pyrolysis -- evaluating their readiness for circular economy integration. It concludes that while recycling rates remain below 10% globally, emerging technologies offer pathways toward closed-loop plastic supply chains, though full-scale implementation requires further development and performance assessment.

2022 IntechOpen eBooks 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Managing Plastic Waste─Sorting, Recycling, Disposal, and Product Redesign

This review covers the full landscape of plastic waste management, from sorting and mechanical recycling to chemical recycling and disposal methods. The paper highlights that landfills remain the most common disposal method despite generating microplastics and toxic leachate, while advanced recycling technologies are still too expensive for widespread use. Better management of plastic waste is directly linked to reducing microplastic pollution and its associated human health risks.

2021 ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 565 citations
Article Tier 2

Expanding plastics recycling technologies: chemical aspects, technology status and challenges

This review examined the full life cycle of plastics and evaluated options for managing plastic waste, with a focus on chemical recycling technologies. The study suggests that overcoming barriers to industrial chemical recycling could open new opportunities for reducing plastic pollution.

2022 Green Chemistry 511 citations
Article Tier 2

Plastic waste recycling: existing Indian scenario and future opportunities

Researchers mapped plastic waste recycling infrastructure across Indian states, finding that PP and PE are most commonly reprocessed, and outlined key opportunities in mechanical recycling, chemical recycling, and waste-to-energy approaches—along with AI and blockchain tools—needed to build a circular plastic economy in India.

2022 International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology 133 citations
Article Tier 2

Strategies and technologies for sustainable plastic waste treatment and recycling

This review covers current and emerging methods for recycling and treating plastic waste to reduce environmental pollution. The authors emphasize that improperly managed plastics break down into microplastics that contaminate ecosystems, and they evaluate strategies including chemical recycling, biodegradation, and energy recovery as more sustainable alternatives to landfilling.

2025 Environmental Functional Materials 10 citations
Article Tier 2

A comprehensive review of recycling and reusing methods for plastic waste focusing Indian scenario

This comprehensive review examines global plastic waste management strategies with a focus on India, covering technologies from mechanical reprocessing and pyrolysis to advanced methods like supercritical water conversion and plasma-assisted processing. Researchers evaluated the scalability, limitations, and environmental trade-offs of each approach, noting persistent challenges with microplastic pollution. The study draws on patents and case studies to highlight practical pathways for improving plastic recycling and reducing environmental contamination.

2025 Waste Management & Research The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy 6 citations
Article Tier 2

Degradation and Recycling of Polymer Materials

This review synthesizes research on the degradation and recycling of polymer materials, covering microplastic formation, recycling strategies, and plastic degradation mechanisms as responses to the significant environmental damage caused by discarded plastics in ocean and other ecosystems.

2025
Article Tier 2

Mechanical recycling and upcycling of marine macro- and micro- plastics: technologies, challenges, and future directions

This review examines current technologies for mechanically recycling and upcycling plastic pollution collected from the ocean, covering everything from collection to processing into new materials. Researchers found that while significant progress has been made in sorting and reprocessing marine macroplastics, recycling marine microplastics remains a major technical challenge due to their small size and degraded condition. The study calls for continued innovation to make marine plastic recycling more cost-effective and scalable.

2025 Frontiers in Marine Science 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Plastics Recycling

This review examines the full landscape of plastic recycling, covering mechanical and chemical recycling processes for major resin types including PE, HDPE, LDPE, PET, polyurethanes, polystyrene, and polypropylene, alongside chemical upcycling of waste plastics into higher-value products. The chapter also addresses the environmental and economic benefits of recycling, plastic resin labelling systems, and the persistent challenges limiting recycling rates globally.

2025
Article Tier 2

Approaches for Management and Valorization of Non-Homogeneous, Non-Recyclable Plastic Waste

This review examined management and valorization strategies for non-homogeneous, non-recyclable plastic waste, evaluating chemical recycling, energy recovery, and upcycling approaches as pathways to reduce environmental plastic accumulation and recover value from difficult-to-process waste streams.

2022 International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 28 citations
Article Tier 2

Plastic solid waste management strategies: An overview of implications on environment and health

This review provides an overview of plastic solid waste management strategies, examining the environmental implications of different disposal pathways — landfill, incineration, recycling, and biological treatment — alongside emerging approaches including chemical recycling and biodegradable substitutes. The authors assess trade-offs between these strategies and identify policy frameworks that could accelerate the transition to more circular plastic management.

2024 Journal of Community Service in Science and Engineering (JoCSE) 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Removal Mechanisms of Polyethylene, Polypropylene, Polyvinyl Chloride, Polyamide (Nylon), Polystyrene and Polyethylene Terephthalate in Wastewater Treatment Plants by Chemical, Photocatalytic, Biodegradation and Hybrid Processes

This review examines chemical, photocatalytic, biodegradation, and hybrid methods for removing common plastic polymers from wastewater treatment systems. Researchers found that while individual treatment approaches show promise for degrading specific plastic types, hybrid processes combining multiple methods tend to achieve more effective microplastic removal.

2023 International Journal of Environmental Engineering and Development 9 citations
Article Tier 2

Management Strategies for Plastic Wastes: A Roadmap Toward Circular Economy and Environmental Sustainability

This chapter reviews strategies for managing plastic waste — including mechanical recycling, chemical recycling, and circular economy frameworks — as alternatives to landfilling and incineration. Unmanaged plastic waste breaks down into microplastics that spread widely through wind and water, making better upstream management critical for reducing environmental contamination. The authors argue that genuinely circular approaches, where waste is eliminated rather than merely shifted, offer the most effective path to reducing long-term microplastic pollution.

2024 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Cпособи переробки полімерних відходів

This review analyzes existing methods for polymer waste management including landfill disposal, incineration, mechanical recycling, and chemical recycling, evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of each approach across different global contexts and highlighting incineration's energy recovery potential alongside its greenhouse gas emission drawbacks.

2025 ВІСНИК СХІДНОУКРАЇНСЬКОГО НАЦІОНАЛЬНОГО УНІВЕРСИТЕТУ імені Володимира Даля
Article Tier 2

Emerging Technologies for Waste Plastic Treatment

This review surveyed emerging technologies for waste plastic treatment including chemical recycling, pyrolysis, biodegradation, and catalytic conversion, evaluating their potential to address the growing plastic pollution crisis more effectively than conventional methods.

2023 ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 46 citations
Article Tier 2

Application of Different Chemical Recycling for Plastics

This review examines chemical recycling methods for plastic waste as alternatives to mechanical recycling, focusing on depolymerization via solvolysis, pyrolysis, and purification processes applicable to PET, polyurethane, and polystyrene. The authors discuss how these approaches convert polymer waste back into feedstock monomers that can be repolymerized, addressing value degradation and sorting limitations inherent to mechanical recycling.

2022 Highlights in Science Engineering and Technology 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Emerging Technologies for Converting Mixed Plastic Waste into Biodegradable Polymers

Scientists are developing new ways to turn mixed plastic waste (like food containers and shopping bags) into biodegradable materials that naturally break down instead of polluting the environment. This research review summarizes promising techniques that could help reduce the microplastics that end up in our food and water. If these methods can be made affordable and used widely, they could significantly cut plastic pollution and the health risks it poses to humans.

2026 Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Article Tier 2

Recycling and Management of Microplastic Waste

This review examines recycling and management strategies for plastic waste, describing the technical and economic challenges of reducing plastic pollution and the remediation approaches that have been attempted to address microplastic accumulation in the environment.

2025 ˜The œBioscan.
Article Tier 2

Integration with biotechnological approaches for upcycling waste plastics

This review examines the limitations of mechanical, chemical, and thermal plastic recycling approaches — including restricted reprocessing cycles, high energy costs, and toxic emissions — and evaluates biotechnological strategies such as enzymatic and microbial degradation as complementary routes for waste plastic upcycling. The authors argue that integrating biological and chemical processes offers the most promising pathway for effective upcycling while reducing carbon emissions and advancing circular economy goals.

2024 Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
Article Tier 2

The U.S. plastics recycling economy :

This NIST report analyzes the current state of US plastics recycling, comparing state and international recycling programs, examining incentives and barriers for different stakeholders, and evaluating the potential of chemical recycling to supplement mechanical recycling.

2024 6 citations
Article Tier 2

Progressing Plastics Circularity: A Review of Mechano-Biocatalytic Approaches for Waste Plastic (Re)valorization

This review examined mechano-biocatalytic approaches to plastic waste valorization — combining mechanical pre-treatment with enzyme catalysis — and argued that this pairing offers a scalable route to chemical recycling of mixed plastic streams that conventional methods struggle to process.

2021 Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology 101 citations