Abstract: Systems and methods for recycling polymers are provided. One embodiment provides a method for recycling synthetic polymers by combining the polymers with a solid depolymerizing catalyst in a vessel, mechanically shearing the combined polymers and the solid depolymerizing catalyst against each other to produce monomers from the polymers; and collecting the monomers. In some embodiments the solid depolymerizing catalyst is solid sodium hydroxide. In some embodiments collecting the monomers is achieved by contacting the sheared polymer and catalyst with a recyclable volatile solvent to dissolve the monomers. In some embodiments, the method includes purifying the collected monomers for repolymerization. In some embodiments purifying the monomers is achieved using nanofiltration membrane technology, cyclic fixed bed adsorption, simulated moving-bed adsorption or a combination thereof.