PET bottle recycling

PET bottle recycling

PET (Polyethylenterephthalate) bottles can be recycled to reuse the material out of which they are made and to reduce the amount of waste going intolandfills. PET is semiporous and absorbs molecules of the food or beverage contained, and the residue is difficult to remove. Using PET bottle flakes to successfully produce higher value products needs improved flake production methods, suitable quality control tools, suitable conversion processes and the right processing equipment. Unlike virgin material, the processing of bottle flakes to the different intermediates and final products needs specific attention, depending on the process or final products that are selected.

PET recycling processes

Company	Process	Contact	Input	Output (with approval)	Capacity (t/a)	Floor Space (m²)	Approvals	Fresh water consumption per tonne output (m³/t)	kWh consumption per tonne output (kWh/t)
Starlinger & Co. Ges.m.b.H., Austria	Bottle-to-Granulate	Elfriede Hell (recycling.he@starlinger.com)	Engineering of washing lines and / or a turn-key project with components and technologies available in the market	Yes (decontaminated for food-contact, IV increased, AA < 1ppm, lowest VOC level)	6,000 - 26,000	Depending on design	USA/FDA (C-H), Austria, Germany/BfR, Ilsi, France/AFFSSA, Finland, Australia, Canada, Egypt, Japan, Switzerland, Latin American Countries; follows EFSA requiremens; brand owners	Depending on design	Depending on design
Amut S.p.A., Italy	Bottle-to-Granulate	Piergianni Milani p.milani@amut.it	Yes		3,000 - 45,000	Depending on size and stream quality		Depending on stream quality	300 - 600
Erema Engineering Recycling Maschinen und Anlagen Ges.m.b.H., Austria	Bottle-to-Granulate	Christoph Wöss ch.woess@erema.at	Yes, in cooperation with long-time partners
Gneuss Kunststofftechnik GmbH, Germany	Bottle-to-Granulate		Engineering of washing lines with long term partners	Yes	up to 17.000		FDA, ESFA (pending), INTI, brand owners (conf.)	Depending on bottle contamination	Depending on input material
Example	Bottle-to-Granulate	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example
Example	Bottle-to-Granulate	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example	Example

PET Associations

Amercia North:

Napcor The National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR) is the trade association for the PET plastic packaging industry. The association's purposes are to promote the introduction and use of PET packaging; to facilitates its recycling; and to communicate the attributes of the PET container as an environmentally sustainable package.

www.napcor.com

PETRA PETRA is the industry association for North America's producers of PET.

www.petresin.org

Europe:

PETcore Petcore Europe is a non-profit European trade association based in Brussels. The focus of the association lies on ensuring the sustainable growth of post-consumer PET collection and recycling and that PET is positioned as a sustainable packaging material.

www.petcore.org

EPBP The European PET Bottle Platform is a voluntary industry initiative that provides PET bottle design guidelines for recycling, evaluates PET bottle packaging solutions and technologies and facilitates understanding of the effects of new PET bottle innovations on recycling processes.

www.epbp.org

Asia

The Council for PET Bottle Recycling, Japan

www.petbottle-rec.gr.jp/english/

Korea Packaging Recycling Cooperative (KPRC)

www.pkg.or.kr/