A new non-profit organization, Chemical Recycling Europe, was created on 22 January 2019 with the vision of establishing an industry platform for developing and promoting cutting-edge chemical recycling technologies for polymer waste across Europe.

The new association aims to deepen collaboration with the EU Institutions and develop positive industry-wide relationships throughout the whole chemical recycling value chains in Europe in order to boost specific polymer recycling. Carlos Monreal, CEO of Plastic Energy was elected President. Additional Board members are Jeroen Bulk (Ioniqa Technologies), Maurizio Crippa (Gr3n), Richard Daley (RENEW ELP), and Floris Geeris (IGE Solutions), all representing key European companies involved in chemical recycling.

Chemical recycling is reportedly a complementary solution for recycling end-of-life plastics and an important additional step for the circularity of the plastics industry even at global level. Chemical Recycling Europe is open to all companies across the value chain that want to ensure chemical recycling will truly find its way in the circular polymer value chains.

Chemical Recycling of polymer waste is defined as any reprocessing technology that directly affects either the formulation of the polymeric material or the polymer itself and converts them into useful products like monomers, basic-chemicals, alternative fuels and other value-added materials.