Page 48 - Plastics Nuews October 2017

INTERNATIoNAL NEWS

PET recycling yield slowly but

steadily decreasing in Europe

he average yield of the polyethylene recyclers in
TEurope has decreased from 73% to 68% since 2011
and this was announced at the annual meeting of Plastics
Recyclers Europe in Barcelona. According to reports at
present, recyclers are obliged to discard more material
in order to achieve high quality recycled polyethylene

(PET), delegates were told in Spain.The ‘constant’ yield
decrease of PET bales processed by recyclers is attributed
to several factors, such as bottles getting thinner, leading
to flakes being more easily discarded early on in the
recycling process.
‘This trend is reaching its limits of circularity even though
minimisation of resources use is one of the prerogatives
of circular economy,’ it was argued. Also, the market
for PET products has grown far beyond the conventional
bottle and as a result this waste stream is getting more
complex. The market for non-bottle is estimated to cover
18% and will only grow in the upcoming years. Another
issue is that the collection systems have not yet been
adapted to the continuously changing PET waste stream.
It was pointed out that products such as opaque PET
bottles and PET trays are mostly present in the coloured
PET bales. For instance; these two types of plastic
represent 20% of the content of the coloured PET bales in
France. ‘Extended producer responsibility schemes must
urgently upgrade their sorting requirements to safeguard
the proven quality of recycled PET from bottle stream,’
according to Casper van den Dungen, vice president of
Plastics Recyclers Europe. He hopes that this will help
develop ‘new dedicated waste streams’ for both opaque
PET bottles and PET trays.

Plastics News | Octob er 2017 48