The circular economy is an economic model designed to minimize waste and make the most of resources by creating a closed-loop system. It contrasts with the traditional linear economy, which follows a “take-make-dispose” approach, where resources are extracted, transformed into products, and discarded as waste after use.
In one example of the circular economy, most large chemical companies have pledged to their stockholders that they will incorporate 500,000 – 3,000,000 metric tonnes per yr of recycled plastic into their virgin plastic products in order to reduce the use of fossil-derived feedstocks. To achieve this goal, they are developing processes to (1) recycle plastic by melting, extrusion and reprocessing with no change in chemical composition (known as Mechanical Recycling) or (2) convert waste plastic into lower molecular weight liquids which can then be further converted into ethylene and propylene and repolymerized to polyethylene or polypropylene polymers which are indistinguishable from those made from fossil feeds. This approach is known as Advanced or Chemical Recycling. It is understood that mechanical recycling cannot meet the overall objectives that companies have set; and so there is an urgent need for improved advanced recycling processes. Trans Ionics has been actively developing new advanced recycling technology called TransPyr and is actively involved in scaling up and commercializing that process.