European R-PET future depends on chemicals recycling – Equipolymers exec

LONDON (ICIS)–Chemicals recycling is the future of the European plastics industry as it ensures lower costs, higher quality and sustainability, according the commercial director of virgin polyethylene terephthalate (PET) producer Equipolymers.

The Schkopau, Germany, based firm launched in early October Viridis 25, a PET produced partially from chemically-recycled bottles.

Up to 25% of the product’s feedstock will be these post-consumer PET bottles, and the company expects that consumption of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (R-PET) for its new product will eventually reach over 30,000 tonnes/year.

Equipolymer’s commercial director, Antonello Ciotti, said the new product could achieve sustainability while ensuring that costs remained low without reducing quality at the same time.

Quality can indeed be an issue for R-PET, with UK-based charity WRAP recording in a July 2013 report that such difficulties stem from varied standards in upstream post-consumer plastic bottles bales alongside contamination during the reprocessing stage.

“[Chemical recycling] is the only solution due to the deterioration of quality of the [post-consumer PET bottles] collection,” said Ciotti.

“The quality of [R-PET] flakes is going down. We collect more and more bottles containing additives … All things that with mechanical recycling you cannot remove.”

Although Ciotti said that developing chemical recycling was a difficult and lengthy process, he added that it was a necessary way of responding to the pressures on virgin PET as the market attempts to reinvent itself amid sustainability concerns.

“What we are doing is exactly a way of addressing [virgin PET’s image in the circular economy] and somehow reposition in the plastic industry,” he said.

“We are not alone in this journey. There are several other plastic producers with other polymers looking at chemical recycling.”

US-based beverages major Coca-Cola partook in the launch of Viridis 25 with both companies collaborating on the product since 2016.

Coca-Cola itself announced in January that it was aiming for an average of 50% recycled material in its bottles, adding that it intended to recycle the equivalent of 100% of its packaging by 2030.

The vice-president of European public affairs at Coca-Cola, Hans Van Bochove, said in March that that the company was aware that recycling infrastructure was not capable yet of helping it achieve these goals.

However, he added that the company wanted to push for a change to this infrastructure in order to equalise recycled content and virgin material.

Equipolymers’ Ciotti said that it is this sort of initiative from a brand owner, as opposed to governmental agencies, that will ensure that the recycling market will grow.

“I think that it is up to brand owners to somehow be more active in the circular economy … By [implementing] regulation you are going to make things only more difficult,” said Ciotti.

“Coca-Cola gave a presentation by which they plan to collect by 2030 as many bottles as they introduce into the market. This is a clear statement that brand owners are now interested to have [an improvement in post-consumer PET bottles] collection.”

This drive by brand owners has led to a jump in demand for R-PET material with colourless flake and food grade pellets consumption driving pricing up in 2018.

More and more R-PET participants also say that competing product virgin PET has become less connected to the recycling market as a consequence of the growth in value of sustainability.

“In the past, the R-PET market was by definition lower than virgin [PET]. Now the brand owners have understood that the two markets are somehow linked, but there is not a dogma that R-PET has to be somehow cheaper than virgin [PET],” said Ciotti.

“So, they are willing to pay a premium for R-PET content.”

The executive disagreed that these latest trends mark the start of a decline for the virgin PET market, adding that instead it presents an alike opportunity for consumers and producers in both markets.

“We think that the combination of virgin [PET] and R-PET is pushing the market to grow because now the brand owners have the possibility of using PET already containing R-PET,” said Ciotti, pictured.

“So, the two things are working together. [Virgin] PET is a fantastic polymer, so we expect a growth in both [markets].”

Furthermore, multiple brands owners and virgin PET producers have purchased recyclers or made moves into the R-PET market recently.

Some R-PET sources subsequently expect more captive use of product in the future.

Ciotti agreed that virgin PET participants need to enter the R-PET market or risk being left behind, but was less concerned about a possible increase in captive use of recycled material tightening supply even further.

“I don’t see the brand owners [becoming] a competitor to recyclers. On the contrary, the cooperation with brand owners and recyclers will increase in the future,” said Ciotti.

“They have to work together to define the request, the needs, of the brand owners and, for example, one of the key points in our product is to specify the technical specs of the [post-consumer PET bottles] bales we can use. This has been done with a number of recyclers that are working with us.”

It is the collection of post-consumer PET bottles that is often criticised among the recycling industry.

The UK’s waste management has itself been labelled as substandard by R-PET participants, with the government proposing in March that it would adopt a deposit return scheme on bottles and cans to improve post-consumer collection.

Nonetheless, whether such a scheme would increase the quality of post-consumer PET bottles bales or not has been a matter of debate.

“Kerbside or deposit [schemes] could reach the same targets if properly applied. So, this depends a lot from country to country specifically,” said Ciotti.

“Each country has to look to the best way to get organised to reach the target. I don’t think that by throwing a … regulation, that requires deposit [schemes] in each country, makes sense.”

Equipolymers is a subsidiary of MEGlobal.

Pictured above: Sorting chain of a recycling plant for household waste in France
Pictures sources: BURGER/PHANIE/REX/Shutterstock and Equipolymers 

Interview article by Pavle Popovic