Biodegradation refers to environmental degradation by biological agents. In addition to mechanical and chemical recycling, biodegradation is widely considered as a promising strategy to dispose of plastic residues. Several technologies have been applied at a lab scale, although the high energetic cost might still impede the scaling up of these technological tools 3.
Chemical recycling, as an alternative procedure, is preferentially aiming at plastic upcycling, e.g., decomposing polyolefin-derived plastics in order to take advantage of smaller intermediates. Several factors, such as the low number of plastic types prone to be mechanically recycled, and the low quality of the secondary products severely restrict the potential of this solution to the problem of plastic waste accumulation. To-date, only mechanical recycling is being applied at a large scale. Given the hundreds of million tons of plastic waste accumulating and the still escalating pace of plastic production, re-utilization of plastic residues is a necessary path to alleviate the gravity of the plastic pollution problem, and at the same time to render available a huge potential reservoir of carbon 2. Together with polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS) and polyvinylchloride (PVC), PE is one of the most resistant polymers, with very long C–C chains organized in a crystalline, dense structure. Polyethylene (PE) accounts for 30% of synthetic plastic production, largely contributing to plastic waste pollution on the planet to-date 1.
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