Signal · PET circularity routesPrepared for Eastman Chemical · September 2026
Eastman is in every PET recycling route except the one improving fastest.
Eastman runs the only large PET methanolysis plant (Kingsport) and has pushed the second-plant decision to 2028. On 31 December 2026 the EU decides which recycling routes count as recycled content. This is how fast every competing route is improving.
Global patent families across 10 PET recycling routes
The decision
Second methanolysis plant · sanction by 2028
The clock
EU recycled-content ruling · 31 December 2026
The map
Ten routes to circular PET, measured on maturity and improvement rate.
The high/low TIR bands split on the median improvement rate of these ten routes (15%/yr) — a judgement relative to this domain, not a fixed threshold. The maturity split is TRL 5, the end of validation in a relevant environment. Source: GetFocus platform export · September 2026.
What the signal shows
The quiet shift19.5%/yr
The additive that repairs old PET improves faster than the chemistry meant to replace it.
Reactive extrusion runs at 19.5% a year; methanolysis, glycolysis and hydrolysis sit at 14.5 to 17.5%. BASF leads, Eastman second.
The overstated lead15.9 vs 15.0
Methanolysis is not improving faster than mechanical recycling.
Methanolysis 15.9%, mechanical 15.0%, pyrolysis 15.9% — the lead is the plant, not the chemistry. New catalysts for methanolysis itself (40% a year) are being filed by others, none by Eastman.
The opening37%/yr
Enzymatic recycling is the only route pulling ahead. Eastman has no patents in it.
37% a year, up every year since 2017 — 561 families, led by Carbios, Novozymes, IFF, CJ and Samsara Eco. Only 3% go beyond the lab: not a 2028 option, a next-decade one.
Who holds the patents
Patent families per route — and each route's biggest holder.
Source: GetFocus platform export · September 2026
Pyrolysis is a boundary reference — it covers mixed plastic waste, not PET alone. Eastman's route, methanolysis, is the orange bar: 365 families in a field where glycolysis carries 1,037 and enzymatic recycling — where Eastman holds none — already carries 561.
For Eastman
Build the 2028 plant on whatever chemistry the regulation favours. The real race is biological, still in the lab — and Eastman is the only big player not in it. Take a position now, while it is cheap, so the plant after this one is not the first built without it.
The method, in one minute
What is TIR?
TIR — the Technology Improvement Rate — measures how fast a technology gets better each year, computed from global patent data. Not who is filing, or how much: how fast the route is actually moving. Historically, the fastest-improving technology always wins.
Signal 1 · Cycle time
How many years between one generation of inventions and the next.
