COEXPAN backs 70% rPET target

A commitment from PET sheet producers to guarantee their products will average 70% recycled content by 2025 has been backed by packaging producer COEXPAN, which has production plants in Spain, Italy, France and Germany.

The company was a founder member of PET Sheet Europe, the association that represents the ten leading PET manufacturers in Europe. In October, the group guaranteed that its products will have a meanrecycled content of 70% within seven years. The current average is 45%.

The COEXPAN division currently uses 50% recycled material in its rigid PET sheets produced primarily for the manufacture of packaging for food stuffs, household products, personal hygiene products and other industrial applications.

It has three production plants located in Spain, Italy and Germany that specialise in the extrusion of PET-based and rPET-based, mono-, medium- and high-barrier plastic sheet. Two plants in France specialise in thermo formed packaging that produce trays and other rPET-based products for food packaging. 

Call for EU support

COEXPAN ceo Dinis Mota says: ‘Commitment in this direction is to design optimal and sustainable packagingsolutions using the main polymers such as PS, PP, PET and PLA, that guaranteethe preservation and protection of products and ensure the responsible use ofour natural resources.

‘In order to achieve a genuine circular economy of plastics we need to be able to count on the support and collaboration of the European authorities.

‘Through the PET Sheet Europe association, COEXPAN endorses the call to the authorities to back the industry’s circularity through laws that promote effective systems of collection, sorting, processing and recycling of PET packaging.’