Following a year-on-year gain of 6.5% last year (see Plasteurope.com of 14.07.2011), European post-sorting PET collection grew by 140,000 t (equivalent to 5.6 bn bottles) in 2011, reaching almost 1.6m t in total, the latest figures released by Petcore (Brussels / Belgium; www.petcore.org) and the European Plastics Recyclers Association (EuPR, Brussels; www.eupr.org) indicate. In percentage terms, the annual increase reached 9.4%, with a record 51% of all PET bottles in the market collected.

The overall EU 27 collection growth rate remained stable at 2%. The two groups said that all but three of the member countries had a collection rate exceeding the 22.5% target for plastic recovery set by the Packaging Waste Directive, while more than a third of the countries surveyed even saw collection rates of more than 70%.

The latest estimates put the total mechanical reclamation capacity in the EU 27+4 countries at about 1.9m t, meaning PET recyclers are still able to absorb larger numbers of PET for reprocessing. According to Casper van den Dungen, chairman of EuPR’s PET working group, “Capacity utilisation of our recycle plants is only 77% at present. This provides the challenge for municipalities, other collectors and industry to increase the current collection rate even further to load the recycling facilities already in place.”

Exports of PET bales to the Far East declined for the third year in a row, the figures indicate. In terms of end use, more than 50% of the resulting rPET went towards containers for sheet or new packaging applications (divided evenly among bottles and jars as well as sheet and other thermoformed containers), while fibres accounted for 39% of rPET flake. About 9% of recycled PET was used to make new plastic strapping tape.