PET recovery grows in Europe

According to data reported by PETcore Europe, a European association headquartered in Brussels promoting the recovery and recycling of PET bottles, 1.64 million tons of PET packaging materials were recycled in Europe in 2013, corresponding to some 65 billion bottles. The report highlights that the upward trend in PET recycling (+7% with respect to 2012) represents an impressive accomplishment on the European level, corresponding to approximately 56% of bottles sold to consumers, although there is still room for improvement.

The issues to resolve in this sense are the large disparities among European member states in terms of recycling capacity and collection limits deriving from the complexity of bottle packaging. In this regard, a governmental effort is necessary to standardize and improve the collection and sorting of bottles. The survey involved the 28 EU member states as well as Switzerland and Norway, and the results will be presented at the PET Network Day 2014 conference this coming 9 October in Brussels.