Call for stand-alone approach to PET tray recycling

United Kingdom – For resource efficiency purposes, PET trays should have their own dedicated recycling stream instead of being mixed with other plastics, according to the Plastics Recyclers Europe trade body.

The 700 000 tonnes of PET trays consumed in Europe every year can be recycled as ‘valuable material’ if they are ‘properly separated’ from other streams such as PET bottles, the organisation asserts. Such a move would enable investment in appropriate recycling lines and would also improve Europe’s overall recycling performance.

‘Trays and bottles are two different types of product which cannot be recycled in the same recycling line,’ notes Plastics Recyclers Europe’s PET chairman Casper van den Dungen. ‘Their designs and chemical compositions are not the same and can create quality problems for existing PET recyclers.’

Plastics Recyclers Europe is calling for a joint value chain approach while warning that ‘one-sided actions’ could endanger the recycling of ‘one of the most recycled plastics in Europe’.

For more information, visit: www.plasticsrecyclers.eu