New research produced for Zero Waste Europe by sustainability consultancy Eunomia Research & Consulting presents a picture of the true state of circularity of this material in bottles in Europe – including how much material from bottles is collected for recycling; how much of it is actually recycled; and how much of recycled PET is put into new bottles.
Most recycled PET recovered from bottles in Europe is being used in other lower-grade PET applications such as trays, film, strapping or fibres – with new bottles placed on the market containing an average of just 17% of recycled PET, despite a recycling rate of around 50%. Recycled content for all PET product streams – including single-use plastic trays, textile fibres, films and strapping – is sourced from bottles, due to very low levels of recycling for non-bottle PET applications. [..] The picture for PET bottle recycling varies across the continent, with some countries achieving high recycling rates mainly due to the presence of Deposit Return Systems (DRS), while others have lower recycling rates when only employing separate collection systems.
unknownx500
