Chemical Recycling of Waste Polystyrene

Abstract

Although plastic is an indispensable material in our daily lives, the plastics problem and issues related to climate change are expected to make addressing environmental issues through plastics recycling and other measures even more crucial.

　Polystyrene is widely used for beverage bottles, food trays, and various other packaging containers. Some items such as fish boxes and foam food containers are mechanically recycled, which makes polystyrene considered to be one of the most recycled resins.

　Even so, most waste polystyrene in Japan is developed for single-use packaging and incinerated for energy recovery purposes. Circular recycling is desirable as a lifestyle system because it can lead to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. For these reasons, our company is also developing environmentally friendly, circular-recycling technologies. This paper introduces our general chemical recycling monomerization technology. It then goes on to discuss mechanical recycling, biomass naphtha-derived polystyrene, and plant-based additive polystyrene, which are all part of our efforts to develop new, environmentally friendly technologies.