Advanced Recycling Conference 2025 fuels innovation across key waste streams

The Advanced Recycling Conference (ARC) 2025 brought together nearly 220 experts from 28 countries to spotlight pioneering advancements and foster industry collaboration in recycling across diverse waste streams including plastics, textiles, automotive and other materials.

This year’s programme emphasised how continuous improvements in core technologies, such as physical recycling through extrusion and dissolution, chemical solvolysis, biochemical enzymolysis, and thermochemical treatments like pyrolysis and gasification, are being steadily optimised. A key factor are cutting edge digital solutions including AI driven sorting and blockchain traceability, enabling more reliable feedstock quality and scalable circular systems amid fluctuating waste volumes and mixed material challenges.

ARC 2025 also addressed the critical need for chemical recycling to regain credibility by demonstrating tangible advancements in process efficiency and transparency along the value chain. Innovative approaches in textile and automotive recycling were explored to overcome complex material blends and regulatory pressures, while integration of carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) highlighted the shift towards truly sustainable circular business models. A significant theme was the urgent need to expand recycling infrastructure to support the deployment of advanced technologies and meet regulatory targets. Extensive networking resulted in strengthened partnerships, further bolstered by a site visit to Chemiepark Knapsack, where participants witnessed industrial scale deployment of these technologies in action.

By bringing together stakeholders across technology, policy, and investment spheres, ARC 2025 laid out a clear pathway for meeting ambitious EU targets, such as increasing post consumer recycled plastics in packaging to 10 to 35% by 2030 and embedding 25% recycled content in new vehicles. These cooperative efforts aim to overcome feedstock availability, variability and infrastructure challenges, fuelling growth in renewable carbon value chains and advancing the defossilisation of the chemical industry.

More details and updates on future events are available at https://advanced-recycling.eu.