Europe recycles more than 65 billion PET bottles in 2013

Petcore Europe, Brussels-based association that promotes PET (polyethylene terephthalate) recycling efforts in Europe, says more than 65 billion PET bottles were collected for recycling in 2013.

“The demand for PET as the packaging material of choice continues to grow, penetrating new markets with innovative applications,” says Robert Bertaggia, Petcore Europe chairman. “The extraordinary ability of PET to be recycled and reused into a wide variety of end uses is part of this success story and is helping towards the movement to a circular economy in Europe.”

Bertaggia continues, “From a sustainability perspective, our industry is thrilled that last year the equivalent of around 56 percent of PET containers in circulation were collected for reclamation and recycling. There is, however, still a huge disparity in collection rates amongst the member states, and all stakeholders need to work together to align the collection processes to deliver the increased recycling objectives recently announced by the European Commission.”

Casper van den Dungen, PET chairman at the trade group Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE) and a Petcore Europe board member, comments, “The overall collection of PET bottles in Europe at 1.64 million metric tons represents a 7 percent increase on last year. We still have considerable spare recycling capacity to enable us to recycle more.”

He continues, “However, one of the factors that will reduce our ability to utilize our available spare capacity is the increasing complexity of some collected baled bottles. Improved and standardized collection and sorting processes would help address this situation.”

The full recycling findings will be presented during the PET Network Day 2014 meeting, to be held in Brussels Oct. 9, 2014. The one-day program is supported by eight European associations representing manufacturers, converters, packers, fillers and recyclers of plastic.