Open Access

Inese Zepa, Vivian Z. Grudde, Catharina Rebecca Bening

• Highlights • Pathways for a circular economy towards the EU goals require policy support that, in turn, requires legitimacy. • Legitimacy is often contested in the public discourse at all phases in the technological innovation system. • Legitimacy remains poorly understood for ‘in-between’ technologies that struggle to move from the formative to the growth stage. • The article explores legitimacy for chemical recycling primarily based on evidence from the UK, Germany, and Italy. Abstract The European Commission aims to increase the recycling of plastic packaging to 60% by 2025, requiring fundamental changes towards a more circular economy. Pathways for this transition require policy support that largely depends on their legitimacy in the public discourse. These normative aspects remain poorly understood for ‘in-between’ technologies, i.e., technologies that are no longer novel but struggle to move to the growth phase within the technological innovation system. Therefore, we ask: How do discourses shape technology legitimacy for in-between technologies? Drawing on the empirical example of chemical recycling, the analysis renders two principal findings. First, legitimising and delegitimising storylines present contesting views on in-between technologies regarding their technological aspects, environmental and social impacts, and economic and policy implications. Second, how discourses contribute to technology legitimacy depends on the actors and interests that drive the prevalent storylines in particular contexts.