European Plastics Recycling Group Announces Results

Petcore, a European-based trade association devoted to recycling of PET plastics, released the first results from a test on recyclable barrier technologies while banning the use of oriented polystyrene sleeves (OPS).

Last year Petcore published its Guidelines and Test Protocols for additives and barrier materials, in order to assess such technologies on their recycling properties.

The first results are now available. Glaskin and Bestpet both passed the tests.

Dr. A. Opschoor, technical director and member of Petcore’s Expert Evaluation Committee commented: “Products that pass this rigorous test regime can be recycled using existing recycling practices, without any difficulties. We are very pleased with these results. It opens up new beverage markets with innovative solutions. Tests on several other barrier materials are in the pipeline; this is just the beginning”.

Petcore’s Expert Evaluation Committee has also reached a verdict on shrink and stretch sleeves.

 “We distinguish between components that accommodate recycling, those that cannot be recycled and must be removed, and those that effectively damage recycling. Our Committee decided that we should only ban components, additives or barrier technologies, which cause real damage to the PET recycling process. We must not forget that nowadays, 25 percent of all European PET bottles are collected, sorted, and recycled. This is an important achievement, and we cannot allow the use of wrong materials to interfere with this”.

Based on this advice, Petcore announced at the Barrier PET Packaging conference that OPS will be banned from the European PET bottle market.

PET recycling processes in Europe differ from those in the United States and Japan. Virtually all European plants use wet grinding, making it very difficult to sort out those polymer films and labels that do not float in water.