Since the beginning of radiation processing of polymers almost half a century ago, radiation 
crosslinking technologies have been extensively developed for useful commercial applications. The 
most well developed examples are the radiation crosslinking of wire insulation, heat shrinkable 
products for food packaging and electrical connections. The opposite of crosslinking namely, 
degradation which is used in the sense of chain scissioning here, has not been considered for long as 
an industrially desirable process and did not find sizeable applications. Controlled radiation 
degradation of polymers has now become an expanding technology encompassing the cleavage of 
polymer main chains, side chains or oxidative degradation. Established commercial processes based 
on the application of radiation degradation are now in place and a number of applications are in 
various stages of research, development and implementation