Four new members have joined Petcore Europe (Brussels / Belgium; https://petcore-europe.org) – Eastman (Kingsport, Tennessee / USA; www.eastman.com), Evertis (Portalegre / Portugal; www.evertis.com), Sealed Air (Charlotte, North Carolina / USA; www.sealedair.com) and Fantastic Plastic, a company registered in Russia in 2017, which will start up a plastic washing line in Nizhny Novgorod / Russia in 2019 that is sponsored by waste and recycling specialist the Mag Group (Nizhny Novgorod; www.mag-rf.ru). Earlier this year, the European PET association welcomed 11 members – see Plasteurope.com of 21.03.2018 – and the latest companies to join bring the number of new Petcore Europe members in 2018 up to 15.

Currently, 50 members and five European associations are part of Petcore Europe, which represents the whole PET value chain. These include PET resin producers, packaging designers and manufacturers, machinery manufacturers, label producers, brand owners, EPR schemes, waste management organisations and recyclers.

Petcore Europe executive director Christian Crépet says, "The several new brand owners, packaging and label producers, waste management organisations as well as other highly important players involved in the PET industry give Petcore Europe an even more important voice in Europe. The new members are already very active in our working groups where we actively address recycling issues."

The association has working groups focused on recycling PET thermoforms, recycling of opaque and difficult to recycle PET packaging, food-contact PET compliance with EU regulation 10/2011 and plastic aerosol recycling, which was established earlier this year – see Plasteurope.com of 15.02.2018.