For several years, the EU has been working toward a common framework to ensure recycled-content targets are measured consistently across member states. Those targets are ambitious, and meeting them at scale requires solutions that go beyond conventional mechanical recycling alone.

That is where chemical recycling comes in.

Earlier this month, EU Member States voted in favour of an implementing decision under the Single-Use Plastics Directive that clarifies how recycled content is calculated, verified, and reported—including content produced through chemical recycling pathways. While the final legal text has not yet been published, independent reporting and industry confirmation point to a clear outcome: chemical recycling is recognized as part of Europe’s recycled-content solution.

The approach builds on principles the Commission has been advancing for some time. It relies on harmonized mass-balance accounting across complex value chains, excludes fuel use from recycled-content claims, and emphasises credible verification. Together, these elements provide the regulatory clarity that large-scale projects need in order to move from development to deployment.

For the chemical recycling industry, this is not just a technical adjustment. It is a signal that Europe is serious about enabling circular solutions capable of handling the real-world plastic waste streams that mechanical recycling cannot efficiently process on its own.

For Aduro, the alignment is especially striking. With a first-of-a-kind industrial plant now being advanced in the Netherlands – at the heart of Europe’s industrial and regulatory ecosystem – the company will be positioned precisely where policy, infrastructure, and market demand are converging. As the EU moves from ambition to implementation, technologies that can integrate into existing petrochemical systems while delivering verifiable circular outcomes stand to play a central role.

This moment reinforces a broader truth: the future of recycling will be defined not by a single technology, but by a portfolio of solutions that work together at scale. With Europe backing chemical recycling as part of that future, companies like Aduro are no longer operating at the margins of policy—they are operating at its centre.