European PET Bottle Platform temporarily endorses perforated sleeves

Three-year endorsement allows perforated sleeves to be used on household and personal care bottles.

Brussels-based Petcore Europe says its Working Group on Recycling of Opaque and Difficult to Recycle (ODR) PET Packaging has been working to increase recyclability of sleeved polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles. The use of sleeves can cause problems when sorting PET bottles using near-infrared (NIR) and optical detection technology. So as not lose the valuable material and to include it in the right sorting stream, the group under the lead of Chair Gian De Belder, Procter & Gamble, who works out of Antwerp, Belgium, came up with a solution: perforated sleeves that be removed by consumers.

The Technical Committee of the European PET Bottle Platform (EBPB) announced during the Petcore Europe Conference Feb. 7 that has awarded a temporary endorsement to full body sleeves used on household and personal care (HPC) PET bottles for a period of three years, provided conditions are met:

  • The sleeve must be equipped with double perforations that are designed to be easily identified and removed by consumers.
  • The packaging industry must develop a standardized perforation concept, both in terms of functionality (easy tearing off operation) and design (immediate recognition), irrespective of the type and content of the PET bottle.
  • To support the above, PET bottles with perforated sleeves must carry a standardized message that asks consumers to remove the sleeve from the bottle and place the bottle and the sleeve in the collection bin or bag for recycling.
  • The packaging industry must support consumer cooperation with communication campaigns and provide data on the effectiveness of the consumer engagement.
  • The PET bottle behind the sleeve must be compliant with the EPBP guidelines for transparent clear/light blue bottles and the sleeve should allow the recognition of the PET bottle, by polymer, if the sleeve is still present on the bottle before sorting.
  • The sleeve design (materials and inks) must allow it to float in hot water and separate from PET flakes in a sink/float separation step.
  • Printed sleeves must not bleed inks into the washing water.

De Belder says, “The approval is a great example of a cross-value chain approach. Petcore Europe, EPBP, Plastics Recyclers Europe and other associations worked together to align the industry and improve the design-for-recycling of HPC PET bottles.”

The official endorsement document is available at www.epbp.org/download/324/interim-endorsement-perforated-tear-off-full-body-sleeves-for-personal-and-household-care-pet-bottles.

With the conditional approval, the involved industries will work together to meet the conditions, according to Petcore Europe. Meetings between the Petcore Europe ODR Working Group, A.I.S.E and Cosmetics Europe have been planned for the upcoming weeks.

The packaging industry commitment to adopting the solution and measuring consumer engagement in removing the sleeves will be assessed during the three-year period.

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