EU hitting PET recycling targets

More than 60 billion PET bottles were recycled in Europe in 2012, acording to PETcore Europe.

“Despite the poor economic situation in the European region, the consumption of PET bottles is still showing clear trends of penetration into new market segments through innovative packaging and the recognised capability of PET to be recycled,” said the organisation’s chairman Roberto Bertaggia. “From a sustainability perspective, our industry is thrilled to have achieved an overall collection rate in 2012 of more than 52% of all post-consumer PET bottles available in the region.”

And with the exception of two members, all EU Member States managed to achieve PET recycling rates above the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive target of 22.5% for plastics.”

“The overall European collection of PET bottles to 1.68 million tons reflects an increase of 5.6% compared to the previous year,” added Casper van den Dungen, PET chairman at Plastics Recyclers Europe. “This has helped to ease the overcapacity situation of recyclers. with an average plant utilisation of 80%.”

“In 2012 the fibres market for textiles and nonwovens was still the single largest end-market for recycled PET, but strong growth in the sheet and bottle market are putting these three markets at similar levels.”

Petcore Europe is a non-profit European trade association based in Brussels. Its mission is to ensure that the PET industry and its associations are aligned to deliver increased value and sustainable growth in the value chain, to ensure that PET is positioned and recognised as an environmentally sustainable packaging material and to ensure sustainable growth for post-consumer PET collection and its recycling of PET to meet the needs of the value chain.

Plastics Recyclers Europe is the professional representative body of plastics recyclers in Europe. PRE members constitute 80% of the European recycling capacity, processing more than five million tons of collected plastics per year.