Petcore: PET collection figures for 2005 published

European PET bottle recycling exceeds expectations

Petcore (www.petcore.org) announced shortly that European post-consumer PET collection rates reached 796,000 tonnes in 2005, a 15.1% increase[1] over the previous year.

The increase in PET collection continues, by far, to exceed growth in consumption. The largest boost came from Germany where collection shot up 32% to reach over 200,000 tonnes.

Significant growth was observed in other countries too, especially in Poland and France. “We were expecting the increase in Germany, but were particularly impressed to see growth continue in countries like France, seen by many as mature collection states”, said Frank Koelewijn, Petcore’s Director General.

Collection has also increased in the UK and Ireland, but mostly in the form of mixed plastic waste, which is not included in Petcore’s statistics.

Export to the Far East was slightly down, from 18.8% in 2004 to 17.6% (or 140,000 tonnes) in 2005. Over 100,000 tonnes of exported bottles came from German retailers, despite ample recycling capacity available both in Germany and its surrounding countries. Mr. Koelewijn continued: “There are two reasons why we are concerned about those developments. First, it is very hard to explain to German consumers why the bottles they bring back to the shops need to be shipped to the other side of the world to be recovered, as they can actually be recycled closer to home. Second, China will close its doors one day. What will the retailers do with all those bottles if, by then, the local recyclers will have perished?”

Most of the collected PET containers were recycled into polyester fibre products (57%), down from 65% in 2004 and 70% in 2003. In contrast, the market for polyester sheet rapidly gained share (16.2%) in a range of thermoformed applications where the use of recycled PET tripled over the past two years. Re-use back into PET bottles (15.2%) has also steadily increased whereas other outlets such as strapping (7.8%) remained relatively flat.

Petcore (PET containers recycling Europe) is a non-profit European trade association based in Brussels. Its mission focuses on the development of PET packaging, with a particular emphasis on PET recycling.

[1] The actual increase amounted to 19.8% because for the first time, collection details of Romania and Bulgaria were included in the survey.

Petcore, Brussels, Belgium

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