SPE COURSE: Additives for Plastics Recycling
Workshop
Additives for Plastics Recycling
May 4, 2026
2:00 to 3:00 PM ET.
Online
Summary
As plastics recycling scales, additives are increasingly essential to maintain performance and processability. In this class, we explore how stabilizers, compatibilizers, and chain extenders are used to address degradation, contamination, and mixed-polymer streams. We will show examples of how additives can be used to address real-world recycling challenges, including property recovery, odor mitigation, and compliance with regulatory and food-contact requirements.
If you can't attend one or several sessions live, or if you want to review some concepts, the recordings will be available after each session.
Who Should Attend?
This course is designed for professionals involved in plastics recycling, sustainability initiatives, and circular materials development, including:
- Recycling and sustainability engineers
- Materials, polymer, and R&D engineers
- Compounders and processing engineers
- Quality, regulatory, and compliance teams
- Brand owners and product developers working with recycled content
- Additive suppliers, application engineers, and technical sales professionals
- Students and early‑career engineers seeking practical knowledge of additives used in plastics recycling
Why Should You Attend?
As plastics recycling scales, maintaining material performance becomes one of the industry’s greatest challenges. Mechanical recycling introduces degradation, contamination, odor, and variability that cannot be solved by processing alone.
This course explains how additives enable recycled plastics to meet:
- Performance requirements
- Processability targets
- Regulatory and food‑contact compliance
It bridges the gap between sustainability goals and real‑world manufacturing demands.
Everyday Problems You’ll Address
- Why do recycled plastics lose strength, toughness, or color after multiple recycling cycles?
- How can degradation caused by heat, shear, and oxygen be managed?
- How do mixed‑polymer streams and contamination reduce performance?
- What causes persistent odor issues in recycled materials, and how can they be mitigated?
- How can recycled plastics meet regulatory and food‑contact requirements while balancing cost and performance?
What You’ll Learn
You will learn:
- Mechanisms of polymer degradation in recycled plastics
- How stabilizers protect materials during reprocessing
- How compatibilizers improve performance in mixed and contaminated polymer streams
- How chain extenders restore molecular weight and processability
- Additive strategies for odor mitigation and aesthetic improvement
- Real‑world examples of additive solutions used in plastics recycling
- Key considerations for regulatory and food‑contact compliance
Why This Course Matters
The success of plastics recycling depends on producing materials that are consistent, high‑performing, and compliant with regulations. Additives are essential enablers of circular plastics.
This course matters because it:
- Helps close the performance gap between recycled and virgin materials
- Enables higher‑value applications for recycled plastics
- Improves reliability and market acceptance of recycled materials
- Reduces regulatory and compliance risk
- Supports technically viable, economically sustainable, and scalable recycling systems
Registration Information
| SPE Premium Member | FREE |
| SPE Members | $49 |
| SPE Student Members | $25 |
| (Student but not a student member? Join SPE for free to get program discounts!) | |
| Nonmembers | $249 |
Not an SPE member? Join today and attend this workshop at a discounted rate!
Workshop Packs
Strengthen your team’s skills and take advantage of group savings with an SPE Workshop Pack.
Go here for Workshop Pack information and registration.
Instructor
Nicole Zacharia, Ph.D.
Program Director, Online Engineering Programs in Polymers
University of Wisconsin - Madison
LinkedIn
Dr. Zacharia was trained as a materials scientist (MIT) focusing in bio and polymeric materials, followed by a postdoc at the University of Toronto. She was faculty at Texas A&M University in mechanical engineering and then at the University of Akron in Polymer Engineering. Since 2019 she has been at the University of Wisconsin Madison, where she is the Program Director for online engineering programs in polymers.
Questions? Contact:
For questions, contact Iván D. López.
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