Accelerating Plastic Waste Circularity

Plastic waste has become a mounting global crisis, with over 380 million tons produced annually and the majority ending up in landfills, incinerators, or oceans. Traditional recycling methods often fall short, which are limited by mixed feedstocks and degraded material quality. As regulatory pressure and decarbonization goals intensify, converting plastic waste to olefins (PTO) offers a scalable, circular solution for the petrochemical industry.

This paper discusses:

  • Why conventional recycling is insufficient for addressing the volume and complexity of plastic waste.
  • How closed-loop PTO technologies - using pyrolysis, hydroprocessing, and steam cracking - enable circularity while reducing carbon intensity.
  • How process simulation tools like Petro-SIM® help operators optimize feed selection, predict furnace behavior, and overcome technical barriers such as coking, variability, and efficiency.