Plastic pollution has become a clear threat to many environmental niches and ecosystems, due to rapidly increasing use of plastic products and leakage to the environment. Polyethylene (PE) is the most widely used and the largest-volume plastic (c.a. 30% of total plastics). Due to the absence of reactive groups, the plastics are often categorized as non-degradable; and are usually disposed of by incineration or landfill. About 12% of plastic wastes are recycled as goods with inferior quality and performance. The real catalytic route for upcycling of PE wastes into value-added products is less than 1%. It is clear that there is an urgent need to develop new routes for innovative upcycling of plastic wastes towards a paradigm shift in the plastic economy.

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ACTPAC aims to develop a complete industry-viable path to convert PE firstly into high-value chemicals and finally into PE-like but fully biodegradable polyesters. As part of this, ACTPAC will create new catalysts and modes for deconstruction of PE into value-added chemicals. The value-added chemicals will be used for the synthesis of biodegradable polyesters. A zero-waste solution to the plastic waste management is thus created to keep plastics out of the environment, and reclaim their values.

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The new properties and specific applications of the new polyester plastics produced from upcycling of PE waste will offer new business opportunities for SMEs by scalable, flexible and robust multi-product manufacturing processes for on-demand and small-volume output production.