From White Pollution to Urban Oil Fields: The Green Revolution and Chinese Solutions in Chemical Recycling of Waste Plastics

With over 400 million tons of plastic produced each year globally and a mere 9% recycling rate, billions of tons of plastic waste end up in landfills or leak into the natural environment, becoming persistent, non-degradable "white pollution."  

A green revolution led by chemical recycling technology is quietly transforming this reality by redefining discarded plastic waste as a potentially limitless "urban oil field." In this transformation, Chinese enterprises represented by Niutech are evolving from technological pioneers to global leaders in the circular economy, leveraging their advanced pyrolysis technology, which has been honored with the National Science and Technology Progress Award.  

I. The Pressing Global Challenge: The Dilemma of Plastic Waste Treatment  

The essence of plastic pollution lies in the long-term harm caused to soil, water, and entire ecosystems by plastic waste that persists in the environment without degrading. The leakage of plastics into nature also represents a tremendous waste of resources—if recycled, these plastics could be tapped as a vast "urban oil field." Traditional recycling solutions, primarily mechanical recycling, struggle with low-value, mixed, or contaminated plastics, and plastic performance declines significantly after multiple recycling cycles. Therefore, developing new methods that enable plastic-to-plastic recycling or even upcycling has become a shared focus for global research and industry.  

II. The Solution: Technical Advantages and Core Value of Chemical Recycling  

Chemical recycling, particularly through pyrolysis technology, is regarded as key to achieving sustainable development and offers irreplaceable advantages over traditional mechanical recycling.  

- Broad Feedstock Adaptability: Capable of processing low-value plastics, composite packaging, and even historically landfilled plastic waste—materials that are economically challenging for mechanical recycling—thereby significantly expanding the scope of recyclable plastics.  

- Closed-Loop Circularity: Through chemical reactions such as pyrolysis, waste plastics are converted into plastic monomers, pyrolysis oil, or syngas, which can then be used to produce plastic feedstock of equivalent quality to virgin materials, truly achieving a "plastic-to-plastic" closed loop.  

- Significant Carbon Reduction Impact: Chemical recycling is a low-carbon, clean recycling method. Studies show that substituting crude oil with plastic-derived oil in processing can substantially reduce carbon emissions, and polyolefins produced from such feedstocks have a significantly lower carbon footprint, providing a practical pathway toward global "dual-carbon" goals.  

- Resource Pressure Mitigation: Chemical recycling can theoretically achieve infinite recycling loops, transforming plastic waste into a critical feedstock source for chemical production, thereby improving resource efficiency and ensuring supply chain security.  

III. Technological Breakthrough: Niutech Leads Industrial Continuous Pyrolysis Innovation  

Despite promising prospects, pyrolysis technology has long faced bottlenecks in industrialization, with many global pyrolysis projects operating below designed capacity due to the inability of most technical solutions to meet industrial continuous and stable operational demands. Niutech has dedicated nearly four decades to overcoming this global challenge.  

Niutech's self-developed "Integrated Low-Temperature Pyrolysis Technology and Equipment for Resource Recovery of Waste Rubber and Plastics" incorporates multiple core technologies such as thermal dispersion, gas-tight sealing, and anti-polymerization, successfully addressing industry pain points like system coking, dynamic sealing during feeding/discharge, and product polymerization. The equipment operates at atmospheric pressure, ensuring safety, and utilizes an advanced intelligent control system to monitor nearly 20,000 technical parameters in real time, guaranteeing efficient, stable, and long-term continuous operation at a 10,000-ton processing scale.  

Through this pyrolysis system, complex feedstocks—including municipal, oceanic, and medical waste plastics—are deeply converted into high-quality pyrolysis oil and solid fuel. The resulting pyrolysis oil can be refined and blended to meet fuel oil standards, serving as marine fuel blending oil or deep-processing feedstock, truly transforming plastics into energy.  

The value of Niutech's technology is demonstrated not only in the laboratory but also validated across diverse global applications. A Danish waste plastic pyrolysis plant supported by Niutech's technology received investment and recognition from chemical giant BASF. In 2025, the company secured significant repeat orders from European clients. To date, Niutech’s technological applications have cumulatively reduced carbon emissions by over 25 million tons, contributing robust "Chinese wisdom" to global carbon neutrality efforts.  

As technology matures, policies improve, and global consensus deepens, this dormant "urban oil field" is being awakened—addressing not only environmental governance but also resource security and the future of sustainable development.