Circular Economy & Recycling Patents: Leaders, Trends & White Space 2026
- 19.8% concentration at the top. The five leading assignees account for 573 of 2,894 records in scope, with a long tail of single- and few-filing entrants behind them.
- Polymer processing dominates the claim map. C08J (polymer processing & solutions) alone touches 27.4% of records, ahead of hydrocarbon refining and plastics preparation classes.
- Filing kept climbing through the last complete year. Annual filings rose 12% from 409 in 2021 to 459 in 2024, with 2023 the peak year so far at 476.
Filing growth compares 2021 (409 records) with 2024 (459) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 2,894 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This landscape maps 2,894 published patent families filed against a search spanning circular economy, waste recycling and resource recovery concepts, cross-referenced with municipal solid waste management, mechanical and chemical recycling, urban mining, material reuse, circular design and waste sorting. The scope runs from 2015 through the 2026-07-31 data cut-off, so it captures both the early wave of mechanical recycling filings and the more recent push into chemical recycling and hydrocarbon-derived recovery routes.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend chart will always look thinner than the underlying filing activity actually was — treat 2025 and 2026 as still filling in rather than as a slowdown.
Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 2,894 records: how filing volume moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses carry the claim density.
Filing trend, 2017–2026
Annual filings rose from 22 in 2017 to a peak of 476 in 2023, then continued near that level through 2024 — the last year that can be read as complete — before the 2025-2026 counts taper as publications catch up with filing dates.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
C08J (polymer processing & solutions) leads at 27.4% of the 2,894 records in scope, followed by C10G (hydrocarbon oils & refining) at 17.3% and B29B (plastics preparation) at 15.6%. Because a single record can carry several IPC classes, these shares sum to well over 100% and should be read as claim density per class, not as a partition of the field.
Shares are the percentage of the 2,894 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Circular Economy, Waste & Recycling Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about circular economy, waste & recycling patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a recent representative filing
WO2026087759A1 — Plastic waste recycling process (Borealis)
The process extracts polyolefins from polymer-containing waste by contacting the waste with a non-polar solvent, heating the resulting composition to a dissolution temperature between 135 and 200 degrees Celsius under 0.1 to 5 MPa pressure for 5 minutes to 5 hours, then recovering a first solution containing the dissolved polyolefin.Filed under Borealis GmbH and published 2026-04-30, this is one of the most recent chemical-recycling filings in scope and illustrates the solvent-dissolution route to polyolefin recovery.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | US20170341942A1 | Methods and systems for large scale carbon dioxide utilization from lake KIVU via a co2 industrial utilizatio… | 208 |
| 2 | US20120310023A1 | Methods of Producing Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels from Solid Plastic Wastes | 125 |
| 3 | US5820759A | Integrated aquaculture and bioremediation system and method | 111 |
| 4 | US5685153A | Efficient utilization of chlorine and/or moisture-containing fuels and wastes | 100 |
| 5 | CN104030738A | 一种餐厨垃圾资源化、无害化的处理方法 | 86 |
| 6 | US5719198A | Recycling of carpet scrap | 79 |
| 7 | US20210189250A1 | Circular economy for plastic waste to polyethylene and chemicals via refinery crude unit | 75 |
| 8 | US20210189252A1 | Circular economy for plastic waste to polyethylene and lubricating oil via crude and isomerization dewaxing u… | 73 |
| 9 | US20210301210A1 | Circular economy for plastic waste to polyethylene via refinery FCC feed pretreater and FCC units | 72 |
| 10 | US5859071A | Recycling of carpet scrap | 67 |
Citation counts reward older records simply for having had more time to accumulate citations inside the searched corpus — read them as a signal of influence on the field's prior art, not as a ranking of current commercial importance.
Patent titles are shown in the language they were filed in, not translated, so that each record stays verifiable against the original filing — a translated title will not match in Eureka or in any national register. Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three patterns stand out once the raw counts are put in context: where claim density already sits, how receiving offices split the field, and what recent momentum by assignee actually shows.
Polymer processing is the most contested single class
C08J covers polymer processing and solutions and sits ahead of every other subclass in the dataset. Combined with B29B (plastics preparation, 15.6%) and C08L (polymer compositions, 9.4%), the plastics-recovery side of the field carries the heaviest claim density — a new filer working on mechanical or chemical polyolefin recovery is filing into the most crowded part of the map.
India edges out the US and PCT as the leading receiving office
India recorded 549 filings, ahead of the United States (512), WIPO/PCT (508) and the EPO (485), with Canada and China well behind at 128 and 94 respectively. That ordering says more about where applicants are seeking early domestic protection than about where the technology originates, since many of the same families also route through PCT.
The leader is well ahead, but the field is not a duopoly
The single leading assignee holds 235 records, more than four times the fifth-placed filer's 58. Yet the top five together still account for only 19.8% of the 2,894 records in scope, and the top ten only 27.6% — most of the field's claim volume sits with entrants outside the ranked leaders.
Recent-year momentum has cooled among the largest incumbents
Several of the most active assignees show sharp year-over-year declines in their latest recorded filing year, including drops of -81%, -82% and -100% among named leaders. Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, part of this is an artefact of the data cut-off rather than a genuine pullback, but it means recent activity should not be read directly off the newest bars.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to circular economy, waste & recycling patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Who is filing, and what is still open
The ranked leaders span refiners, polymer majors, a university and at least one downstream consumer-goods filer, but the ranking's own concentration numbers show plenty of room outside that group.
One assignee leads by a wide margin
The top-ranked assignee holds 235 records against a fifth-place figure of 58 and a tenth-place figure of 35 — a steep drop-off that suggests a first-mover advantage in core claims rather than an evenly contested field.
Co-assignment is rare and concentrated
Only three co-assignee pairs appear in the dataset, and the strongest of them — a consumer-goods filer paired with a university's board of regents — accounts for 16 shared records. Most filers in this field protect their claims independently rather than through joint assignment.
Several large incumbents show zero latest-year activity
Two of the assignees tracked for recent-year momentum recorded zero filings in the latest year, a -100% year-over-year change. Given the 18-month publication lag, this likely reflects filings still working through publication rather than an actual stop in R&D.
| Assignee | Recent year | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| BASF SE | 5 | -81% |
| William Marsh Rice University | 2 | -82% |
| SABIC Global Technologies B.V. | 2 | -50% |
| Chevron U.S.A. Inc. | 0 | -100% |
| Borealis AG | 0 | -100% |
| UOP LLC | 0 | — |
| Procter & Gamble Co. | 0 | — |
| X Development LLC | 0 | -100% |
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a field with a clear leader, a dense plastics-recovery core and several thinner adjacent branches. The next steps depend on whether the goal is defensive clearance or offensive filing.
Run a freedom-to-operate check against the densest classes
Before filing into C08J, C10G or B29B, a targeted search against the leading assignees' families in those classes will surface which specific process steps are already blocked.
Explore Eureka for FTO analysisTrack momentum shifts among the largest filers
The sharp year-over-year drops among several top assignees are worth monitoring rather than taking at face value, given the publication lag distorting the newest years.
Set up monitoring in EurekaScope the under-claimed branches before committing R&D spend
Chemical recycling solvent loops and circular-design-for-disassembly claims show thinner coverage than the core plastics classes — worth a closer novelty check before investing.
Run a white-space search in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The ranked leader in this dataset holds 235 records, well ahead of the fifth-placed filer at 58 and the tenth-placed filer at 35, indicating a steep drop-off rather than an evenly spread field. Even so, the top five assignees combined account for only 19.8% of the 2,894 records in scope, and the top ten for 27.6%, so most of the filing volume sits outside the ranked leaders. Anyone assessing competitive position should look at the long tail of single- and few-filing entrants as closely as the named leaders, since that tail represents the majority of the field.
The dataset shows C10B (coke and destructive distillation) and C10G (hydrocarbon oils and refining) each carrying substantial claim density at 11.1% and 17.3% of records respectively, alongside B29B (plastics preparation, mechanical route) at 15.6%. This suggests chemical and thermal recovery routes are filed almost as heavily as mechanical preparation, rather than being a minor adjacent category. A representative recent filing, WO2026087759A1 from Borealis, uses a solvent-dissolution chemical recycling process, which is consistent with continued activity in that class through 2026.
Filing activity rose from 22 records in 2017 to a peak of 476 in 2023, and grew 12% from 409 in 2021 to 459 in 2024, the most recent year that can be treated as complete. Counts for 2025 and 2026 appear lower in the raw data, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than an actual slowdown. Anyone tracking this trend should wait for later data cuts before drawing conclusions about the most recent one to two years.
C08J, covering polymer processing and solutions, touches 27.4% of the 2,894 records in scope and is the single densest class in this dataset. B29B (plastics preparation) and C08L (polymer compositions) follow at 15.6% and 9.4%. Because records often carry multiple IPC classes, a filer working on polyolefin recovery is likely to need clearance across all three rather than just the one that seems most directly relevant to a given process step.
Co-assignment is rare in this field, with only three co-assignee pairs recorded and the strongest joint filing pairing a consumer-goods company with a university at 16 shared records, suggesting most innovation is claimed independently. Sub-areas such as chemical-recycling solvent-recovery loops, urban mining of electronic waste, and circular-design-for-disassembly claims carry comparatively thin coverage relative to the dominant polymer-processing and refining classes. A more thorough clearance search focused on those specific branches, rather than the broad category as a whole, is likely to reveal filing room.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.