Growth spurt for Europe’s PET bottle recycling

Europe – PET bottle recycling within Europe increased by 7% to 1.64 million tonnes in 2013, reports Petcore Europe.

According to the Brussels-based trade association′s chairman Roberto Bertaggia, demand for PET as a packaging material continues to grow, ′penetrating new markets with innovative applications′. And he adds: ′From a sustainability perspective, our industry is thrilled that last year the equivalent of around 56% of PET containers in circulation were collected for reclamation and recycling′.

However, Bertaggia points to the continuing ′huge disparity′ in collection rates between EU member states. ′All stakeholders need to work together to align the collection processes to deliver the increased recycling objectives recently announced by the European Commission,′ he insists.

Casper van den Dungen, PET chairman at Plastics Recyclers Europe and a board member of Petcore Europe, comments: ′We still have considerable spare recycling capacity to enable us to recycle more. However, one of the factors that will reduce our ability to utilise our available spare capacity is the increasing complexity of some collected baled bottles. Improved and standardised collection and sorting processes would help address this situation.′

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