TeardownOctober 3, 2026
Plastic pyrolysis: nameplate capacity is not operating performance
Closures and underutilisation expose the gap between making an oil and running a profitable plastic-to-plastic system.
Writing
Explainers, teardowns, and myth-busting on waste management systems and green engineering.
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Teardown posts
TeardownOctober 2, 2026
Reju’s two-minute polyester claim leaves most of the process outside the stopwatch
Fast depolymerisation is not the same as fast textile recycling; sorting, purification and future plant operation determine the result.
TeardownSeptember 27, 2026
MacroCycle and Meta: a recycling deal made of credits, not plastic
Meta will buy environmental attribute credits from MacroCycle's solvent-based PET recycling. The chemistry is novel. The plant does not exist yet, and Meta is not buying any recycled material.
TeardownSeptember 23, 2026
Bobine's 'electrified plastic recycling': striking numbers, no independent evidence
The French startup claims +45% yield, −60% energy and −45% cost by heating a catalyst with induction to turn plastic waste into olefins. Every figure is self-reported, and none has a baseline.
TeardownSeptember 22, 2026
The Recycling Partnership's 'Evolving Ton': excellent data, no prescription
Cartons up 61%, mixed paper down 34%, plastics now outweigh paper in U.S. recycling. The new report is the best picture of the bin we have — and says almost nothing about what to do.
TeardownSeptember 20, 2026
BASF's ecovio Is Certified Home-Compostable. Two Data Sets Are Missing
A PBAT and PLA blend with TUV OK Compost Home certification. The disintegration is tested. The barrier performance and the microplastic question are not.
TeardownSeptember 17, 2026
Envetec Says It Can Recycle Biohazardous Medical Waste. What Is Actually Proven?
On-site shredding and disinfection that turns regulated medical waste into recyclable polymer flake. The disinfection is certified. Most of the headline numbers are not.
TeardownSeptember 12, 2026
Aduro's Hydrochemolytic Route: Water-Mediated Plastic Conversion, and the Refinery Problem It Does Not Escape
Aduro says its water-based chemistry converts waste plastic and heavy oil at lower temperatures than pyrolysis. Even if that holds, the output is still a feedstock that a refinery has to finish.
TeardownSeptember 12, 2026
Kirin and JSW Put PET Depolymerisation Inside a Twin-Screw Extruder
Chemical recycling of PET normally means a stirred tank and several hours. Kirin and JSW have moved the reaction into a continuous extruder. If the numbers hold, the interesting part is throughput per unit of capital.
TeardownSeptember 11, 2026
ReBioCycle's PLA Loop: What a Closed Loop Means When Nobody Publishes the Yield
An EU project says it has closed the loop on PLA — sorting, depolymerising and repolymerising bioplastic back to virgin-grade. The chemistry is sound. The numbers that decide whether it matters are missing.
TeardownSeptember 10, 2026
The Ocean Cleanup Says 50 Million Kilograms. Here Is What That Is a Fraction Of.
The removal figure is real and independently plausible. Set against annual plastic inflow to the ocean, it represents a small fraction of a single year — and the river interceptors are the part of the programme that actually scales.
TeardownSeptember 9, 2026
Syntetica Wants to Recycle Nylon. The Feedstock Barely Exists in Recoverable Form.
Chemical depolymerisation of nylon 6 back to caprolactam is proven chemistry with decades of industrial history. The constraint has always been that most nylon in the world is blended into textiles that cannot be separated.
TeardownAugust 20, 2026
EPS transport packaging leaves the “problematic” list — but is it circular?
On 19 August the U.S. Plastics Pact removed expanded-polystyrene transport packaging from its Problematic and Unnecessary Materials list, citing a recycling rate above 30%. That is a real result on a narrow slice of foam — and it is not permission to put your foam cup in the recycling bin.
TeardownAugust 16, 2026
MIT's recyclable stretch yarn: a design win, not yet a system
A polyethylene core-sheath yarn that stretches like PET-spandex and survives ten melt-and-respin cycles. The material result is real. The gap between a recyclable yarn and a recyclable garment is where almost all of the difficulty still sits.
TeardownAugust 10, 2026
Nine companies, one shared recycling line: Japan's flexible-packaging trial
A Ministry of the Environment-commissioned demonstration puts nine Japanese companies on a shared platform to delaminate and deink flexible packaging. It is a genuinely interesting infrastructure model. It is not yet proof of scale.
TeardownAugust 8, 2026
A KitKat wrapper made from soft plastics: closed loop, or mass-balance proof of concept?
Nine and a half tonnes of pyrolysis oil, five tonnes of resin, seven million wrappers. A real supply chain ran end to end - and almost none of the numbers that would prove it works were published.
TeardownAugust 7, 2026
PureCycle's commercial rebound has real proof points - the economics are still on trial
Q2 brought first branded resin deliveries, seven customer conversions and 173% revenue growth. It also brought a $142m net loss. A look at what advanced recycling has actually demonstrated, and what remains a forecast.