Petcore Europe and the Parliament Magazine hold European Parliament discussion to present PET industry’s best practices

Petcore Europe and the Parliament Magazine have help a breakfast discussion in the European Parliament to present the PET industry’s best practices and to being together EU policymakers, NGO’s and stakeholders alike to discuss the PET recycler’s unused capacity.

While Petcore Europe set itself the objective to recycle 100 per cent of all collected PET packaging material by 2030, this commitment is undermined by proposed reduction targets for PET food containers in the Single Use Plastics Directive.

Speakers included Gian De Belder from P&G and Patricia Fosselard from EFBW, who presented industry practices and both showed that most PET packaging in perfectly recyclable, but the issue is that in Europe not enough material is collected and sorted.

Christian Crepet, Executive Director of Petcore Europe, said: “European PET recyclers currently lack material to reprocess, to an extent that there is an unused capacity of 296,500 tonnes which can be caused by numerous reasons, one of them being the quality of the collected PET.”

 “Moreover, insufficient quantity of collection can be observed - a lack of 115,000 in 2017. Increased collection and sorting of PET bottles and trays would therefore ensure sustainability and circularity of plastics.”

MEP Maria Spyraki, who hosted the event, said: “We have to congratulate the PET industry for setting up its own initiative for circularity. Nevertheless, it is essential to focus on communication with consumers to increase awareness.”