The characterization of recyclates is an essential element of a circular plastics economy. This includes the evaluation of application-relevant properties as well as a comprehensive molecular understanding. For the latter, spectroscopic approaches, thermal analysis, and chromatographic techniques are used in the same manner as for virgin materials. This is complemented by a sensory evaluation comprising color and odor. Generally, a particularly important feature is the representativeness of the analytical results, which requires to select suitably large sample sizes and their homogenization. In contrast to virgin plastics, the identification and quantification of minority components plays an important role. Even minute amounts of impurities, for example odor effective volatile organic components or contaminations with other polymers, may reduce the quality and, therefore, limit the application. To analyze impurities, suitable extraction procedures often followed by chromatographic separation are an integral tool of the analytical workflow.