This review focuses on light-driven approaches for chemically recycling and upcycling plastic waste, emphasizing reduced energy consumption and selective transformations not achievable with heat-driven methods. The authors highlight the challenges of recycling polymers with C–C backbones, which lack functional groups that facilitate chemical recycling. They discuss the use of light, either in conjunction with heat or via photocatalysis, to drive depolymerization to monomers or transform polymers into valuable small molecules. The review covers various methods, including thermal and controlled photothermal depolymerization, and photocatalytic upcycling, such as proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET), ligand-to-metal charge transfer (LMCT), hydrogen atom transfer (HAT), and side-chain-induced backbone scission. The authors also address the structural prerequisites for these approaches, their advantages, and limitations, and provide an outlook on future photocatalyst development, key challenges, and opportunities.This review focuses on light-driven approaches for chemically recycling and upcycling plastic waste, emphasizing reduced energy consumption and selective transformations not achievable with heat-driven methods. The authors highlight the challenges of recycling polymers with C–C backbones, which lack functional groups that facilitate chemical recycling. They discuss the use of light, either in conjunction with heat or via photocatalysis, to drive depolymerization to monomers or transform polymers into valuable small molecules. The review covers various methods, including thermal and controlled photothermal depolymerization, and photocatalytic upcycling, such as proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET), ligand-to-metal charge transfer (LMCT), hydrogen atom transfer (HAT), and side-chain-induced backbone scission. The authors also address the structural prerequisites for these approaches, their advantages, and limitations, and provide an outlook on future photocatalyst development, key challenges, and opportunities.