Efficient Recycling Of PET

Ideally, recycled PET would be used first for high quality applications and then progressively for lower quality applications. rPET already meets food grade standards, allowing for a high quality "bottle-to-bottle" recycling model. However, according to ICIS, 66% of rPET recycled material worldwide is currently used in chemical fibers, which is "downcycled".

In fact, many consumer brand companies require 30% recycled material, which can extend the life of PET. Some companies have done experiments and used 100% recycled material. PET bottles can be recycled about 8 times. After that, the performance of the product decreases significantly, becoming fragile and yellowing in color. Of course, some companies have proposed to use 100% rPET, such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola. They have proposed or introduced 100% rPET beverage packaging bottles, which will pose a considerable challenge to the quality of recycled raw materials and processing technology.

Recycling starts with recycling. The quality of recycled PET bottles, whether contaminated or not, has a direct impact on the application of rPET. For this reason, many companies are focused on establishing recycling systems and are beginning to deploy these systems to eliminate contamination at the source.

Recycling starts with design. The design of the bottle largely determines the quality of rPET. For example, some bottles are laminated and completely wrapped, making them impossible to sort; there are many PVC labels that are indistinguishable from PET, which directly affects the quality of rPET; and some self-adhesive labels also contain adhesives that are difficult to clean.

The ACERETECH team has developed a PET bottle-to-bottle system with full turnkey capability. Currently, there are at least 30 PET recycling cases worldwide, including food grade PET lines. In addition, we have the capability to manufacture complete PET nonwoven, packaging tape and flake lines to meet all customer requirements from recycling to recovery.