MATERIALS / RECYCLING PETplanet Insider Vol. 24 No. 05/23 www.petpla.net 12 Consistent circulation management of PET bottles can save 60,000 t of CO2 in Germany alone Study on environmental benefits of a PET material cycle for single-use bottles “In order to drive climate protection and the circular economy, the circulation management of single-use PET bottles should be improved,” says Ifeu study leader Benedikt Kauertz. According to the 2021 study, around 425,000 t of plastic are used in Germany for the production of single-use PET bottles. Through the deposit system, 97 per cent of this material can be collected and reprocessed. This recyclable material is already sorted and can even be reused as food packaging. For this reason, it is a sought-after product on the secondary plastics market – and not only for manufacturers of drinks bottles. This is also why it has not yet been possible to reuse all the PET for drinks bottles: around 55 per cent of recycled PET is bought by manufacturers of films, textiles and packaging for cleaning products or cosmetics, and it is used for these products. “When the premium PET comes out of single-use deposit bottle recycling loop and goes into these applications, it is usually lost to the circulation system for new PET bottles – with negative environmental effects,” explains Kauertz. The most important regulatory mechanism for positively assessing bottle circulation is therefore the retention of material. PET from single-use bottles: Nine reuses possible The study shows that the original primary PET is currently reused three times at most. In Germany, it usually ends up in waste incineration after that (“thermal recycling”). If all the PET from the recycling of single-use bottles was reused for drinks bottles, it could theoretically be reused nine times. This makes the amount of material needed in the bottle circulation loop significantly lower than in the other systems. “Closing the bottle circulation loop reduces the use of primary PET considerably. In 2021, manufacturers had to feed in 235,000 t of primary PET. In the closed bottle circulation loop, the use of primary PET would fall by more than 90% to 21,000 t,” says GVM Project Manager Nicolas Cayé. Consistent closure of the circulation loop by prioritising material use in the material stream could reduce the proportion of thermal recycling by 86% and the driftage of materials by 66%. In the scenario where the recyclable PET from deposit-scheme single-use drinks bottles is used as much as possible for new drinks bottles, CO2 emissions fall by 20 per cent or around 60,000 t/a. Here, the study considers the entire value creation chain including all secondary uses, and thus includes a broader system scope than the productrelated packaging life cycle assessments. The benefit of consistent circulation management therefore stands up robustly against methodological stipulations. About the study The study into the environmental potential of a prioritised material cycle for single-use PET bottles in Germany was carried out by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (Ifeu) in cooperation with GVM Gesellschaft für Verpackungsmarktforschung, and is a contribution to both scientific and political discussions. The client is Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Deutschland GmbH (CCEP DE). The final report has been available since March 2023. The study investigates what environmental effects an amended, priority materials circulation system has on the environmental record of the PET material cycle for drinks bottles, taking into account the material flow balance, material retention and bonding, and the greenhouse gas balance. Alongside observation of the current situation in 2021, the study also investigates scenarios for 2025. www.ifeu.de If the plastic brought onto the market in Germany as single-use PET bottles was completely reused for the manufacturing of these bottles, around 60,000 t of CO2 could be saved. Instead, too great a proportion of the foodgrade recyclable plastic leaves the single-use container deposit circulation loop for alternative uses and then quickly ends up in waste incineration. These are the findings of a study by Ifeu and the GVM Gesellschaft für Verpackungsmarktforschung [Association for packaging market research].
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