Signal · Circular polypropylene routesPrepared for Milliken · September 2026
You have a product in the fastest route and in the two slowest. In the fast one, the part you sell is disappearing.
New Jersey's food-contact exemption ends in January 2027. PPWR wants 10% recycled content in contact-sensitive packaging by 2030. PureCycle made 4.5 million pounds last quarter against a 107 million pound plant. Both your bets are live. This is how fast each one is improving.
Five circular-PP routes, one boundary reference · the fast route read patent by patent
The decision
Where the next additive bet goes · both your circularity bets are live
The clock
New Jersey exemption ends January 2027 · PPWR wants 10% recycled content by 2030
The map
Five routes to circular polypropylene, measured on maturity and improvement rate.
The high/low TIR bands split on the median improvement rate of these six technologies (17.8%/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. Pyrolysis is a boundary reference: it covers mixed plastic waste, not PP alone. Source: GetFocus platform export · September 2026.
What the signal shows
Your three bets3 routes
They sit at both ends of the chart.
Barrier packaging 20.0%, the fastest here. Additives 16.5%, the only route that has got slower every year since 2018. Dissolution 12.0%, the slowest.
Inside the fast route25% → 5%
The barrier is moving out of the plastic and onto it.
Building the barrier into the plastic was a quarter of this work before 2022. Since 2022 it is a twentieth. What replaced it is a thin layer of aluminium, up from 21% to 40% — the least mono-material answer there is.
Who owns it14 of 1,000
Additive makers hold 1% of this field. You hold none.
Additive and masterbatch firms own 14 of 1,000 patents; only one has more than a single family. The resin makers took it in-house: Exxon 37, Mitsui 27, Dow 26, Nova 14, LyondellBasell 14. The two biggest owners are printers: Dai Nippon 87, Toppan 69 — the work moved to the coating line.
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 — mixed plastic waste, not PP alone. The orange bars are the routes where Milliken has a product: the barrier field’s 2,084 families are led by printers (Toppan 149, Dai Nippon 146), and additive and masterbatch firms hold 1% of it.
For Milliken
You are on the right route. But the field now builds the barrier with a layer of aluminium, not with what goes into the resin, and the patents have moved down the line to the film and coating makers. Additive firms hold 1% of it. You hold none. One more thing: only 10 patents in a thousand prove the pack is recyclable in a real stream. The rest just say so, and the 2030 rules will want proof.
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.
Methodology co-developed with MIT — 30 years of peer-reviewed research.
What we could look into next
Three questions this teaser opened.
01
The aluminium route
It is winning the filings. Does a metallised pack still count as recyclable?
02
Your own additives
DeltaMax and Millad against the resin makers' in-house work. Who is ahead?
03
PureCycle
Dissolution is slowest here. Is your partner's patent position a wall or a head start?
Pick one, or choose a new topic. We run it as a full proof of concept for you, at no cost.
A free proof of concept, on your question
Pick one question. We run it for free.
Test whether a metallised pack still counts as recyclable, rank DeltaMax and Millad against the resin makers' in-house work, or read PureCycle's dissolution position — we run any one as a full proof of concept, at no cost, walked through with our analysts.
