The Coalition believes that it is important to define chemical recycling by its principles, rather than link it to specific technologies, which may change over time as waste processing becomes an important sustainable sector.

A brief description of the various commonly known technologies is as follows: Pyrolysis thermally decomposes the polymeric waste using heat and in the absence of oxygen. Solvolysis/chemolysis or other depolymerisation processes break the polymer chain down into its monomer constituent parts. Gasification is another example which decomposes polymeric waste into syngas and is used as a raw material to manufacture products.