Why Plastic Recycling Still Isn’t Solved?

Plastic is one of the most widely used materials in the world - durable, versatile, and inexpensive to produce. But these same qualities also make it a long-lasting problem when it becomes waste. Despite decades of awareness campaigns, only about 9% of all plastic ever produced has been recycled.

One reason is design: much of the plastic packaging and products we use today were never created with recycling in mind. Mixed materials, dyes, additives, and contamination make the process far more complex than simply melting old product into a new one.

Another reason is infrastructure: recycling systems vary greatly from country to country, and in many places they cannot yet handle the variety of plastics in circulation.

At its core, plastic recycling is the process of recovering used plastic products, breaking them down, and turning them into raw materials for manufacturing new items. The aim is to keep plastics in the value chain for as long as possible, avoiding the need to produce more from fossil fuels. But unlike materials such as glass or metals, plastics can degrade in quality with each recycling loop, which limits how many times they can be reused in the same form.

In the posts ahead, we’ll look at the main technologies that make recycling possible, the challenges they face, and the growing role of policy in shaping the future of plastics.

At RMP, we believe that improving plastic recycling requires both local action and alignment with broader European initiatives. We are exploring technologies and partnerships that could make a real difference in the Baltic region.