Public interest in physical and chemical recycling technologies has grown alongside increasing concern over plastic waste. While these technologies are not new, recent efforts to scale them for industrial use have accelerated. Evaluating both their benefits and their associated concerns is essential to determining their appropriate role in advancing a circular economy for plastic packaging. As these technologies evolve, it is critical to establish clear policy frameworks and performance standards to ensure they contribute meaningfully to reducing virgin plastic use and advancing circularity, without compromising environmental or public health.

The U.S. Plastics Pact recently released a new position paper on Physical and Chemical Recycling. The position is the result of a year-long effort by representatives spanning across the plastics value chain, researching literature to add to their own knowledge before developing a holistic approach to identifying where these technologies are necessary to meaningfully advance circularity and the appropriate safeguards to protect environmental and human health. Join us for a dynamic panel exploring the role of these technologies in a circular economy – including their place in the waste hierarchy, what complementary to mechanical recycling really means, important principles to drive transparency and trust, and regulatory best practices to facilitate the best environmental and human health outcomes.

About the Speaker

Crystal Bayliss
Director, Strategy and Engagement | US Plastics Pact

With fifteen years of supply chain experience in the consumer-packaged goods industry, Crystal Bayliss developed a passion for the circular economy as the rigid plastics procurement manager. In that role, she enjoyed educating and engaging both internal and external business partners to understand how their individual actions were critical to collective sustainability initiatives. Today, Crystal oversees the U.S. Pact’s progress toward Roadmap 2.0 Targets and Deliverables and leads several workstreams. She focuses on helping companies make progress on their circular design and PCR commitments as well as creating systems-level changes to increase the collection and recycling of plastic packaging. Crystal’s experience leading cross-functional teams and multistakeholder partnerships is helping the U.S. Plastics Pact bring together the entire value chain to advance the circular economy and solve the plastics waste crisis.