February 9, 2026
As global sustainability commitments accelerate, plastics and material waste remain among the most urgent environmental and economic challenges of our time. Governments, brands, and supply chains are increasingly aligned around one shared reality:
The future of materials will be circular — or it will not be viable.
Yet despite progress, today's global material system remains overwhelmingly linear. The majority of extracted resources are still used once and disposed of, rather than cycled back into productive use.
International waste volumes continue to rise:
Even in advanced economies, recovery remains incomplete. For example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that roughly 50% of municipal solid waste is still sent to landfill, illustrating the structural limits of current waste systems.
https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials
The broader takeaway is clear:
A substantial portion of plastics and packaging materials are not recovered effectively anywhere in the world, even where recycling infrastructure exists.
The most influential circular economy authorities consistently emphasise that recycling, while essential, is not sufficient on its own.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, one of the world's leading voices on plastics and circularity, defines the circular economy as a system designed to:
https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/topics/plastics/overview
Its Global Commitment now mobilises over 1,000 organisations working toward systemic redesign rather than incremental recycling improvements.
https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/topics/plastics/global-commitment
Similarly, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) highlights that ending plastic pollution will require upstream design change, reuse models, infrastructure investment, and downstream innovation to prevent leakage.
https://www.unep.org/plastic-pollution
Microplastic contamination has emerged as one of the most significant long-term environmental risks associated with polymer waste.
Peer-reviewed research increasingly stresses that end-of-life strategies must avoid simply fragmenting plastics into smaller particles, and instead support pathways that prevent persistent residue.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772416622000018
This has also increased scrutiny of oxo-degradable approaches, which have been criticised for contributing to microplastic pollution rather than achieving true biological assimilation.
Across policy, science, and industry, the consensus is emerging:
The EPA itself has highlighted the scale of investment required to modernise recycling systems and expand recovery capacity.
https://www.epa.gov/smm/us-recycling-infrastructure-assessment-and-state-data-collection-reports
Within this evolving global context, BioFuture Additives (BFA) has focused on one of the most important unanswered questions in sustainable materials:
What happens to polymers that escape recycling and end up in landfill or the environment?
BFA's bioconversion additive technology is designed to support a regenerative pathway for this unrecovered fraction — enabling polymers, in microbe-rich environments, to convert into:
Importantly, this approach is distinct from fragmentation-based degradation pathways and is designed to avoid persistent microplastic residue.
In this way, bioconversion can be understood as a complementary tool within the broader circular economy transition:
The next phase of sustainable materials will be defined not only by higher recycling targets, but by deeper innovation in material fate:
This is the frontier where sustainable materials science, policy, and industrial innovation are converging globally.
We look forward to continuing the dialogue with partners, researchers, and sustainability leaders worldwide working toward that future.
Warm regards,
Dean Lynch & Leviticus
BioFuture Additives (BFA)
