The sustainability of plastics as a material is more than ever a relevant topic for scientists to work upon. Plastics are often misunderstood as an ‘unsustainable’ material because of the very real littering issue in which they feature. Nonetheless, society and environment are rightfully crying out for more and better solutions concerning the collection, sorting, and recycling of plastics. Circular Plastics as a concept requires thinking across the entire value chain as well as in many different fields of science: engineering, chemistry, waste management, consumer behavior, economy, and political sciences. Interdisciplinary problems require interdisciplinary answers. That is why, within the resource recovery platform CAPTURE, over a dozen scientists from different institutes have joined forces in the Plastics to Resource pipeline, working together to bring plastics to true circularity. Six of us are now inviting you to contribute scientific insights from your respective domains to this thematic Special Issue. This Special Issue welcomes papers on the scientific-technical side of the different pathways for recycling (mechanical, thermochemical, solvolysis) as well as logistics and pre-treatment but also material and product design for circularity, sustainability indicators, and holistic policy or macro-economic perspectives.
Keywords: mechanical recycling; thermochemical recycling; solvolysis; sorting and pretreatment; plastics value chains; sustainability indicators; design for/from recycling; policy implications for plastics recycling.