Sixty-five billion polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles were recycled in Europe in 2013, according to Petcore Europe.

The figures from the ‘Post Consumer PET recycling in Europe 2013 and Prospects to 2018’ report from Petcore Europe, a non-profit European trade association that ‘aims to ensure that PET plastic is recognised as an environmentally sustainable packaging material’, show that approximately 56 per cent of PET containers in circulation were collected for reclamation and recycling.

Petcore Europe Chairman Roberto Bertaggia, said: “The demand for PET as the packaging material of choice continues to grow, penetrating new markets with innovative applications. The extraordinary ability of PET to be recycled and reused into a wide variety of end uses is part of this success story and is helping towards the movement to a circular economy in Europe.”

“Still a huge disparity in collection rates”

He added: “There is however still a huge disparity in collection rates amongst the Member States, and all stakeholders need to work together to align the collection processes to deliver the increased recycling objectives recently announced by the European Commission”.

Casper van den Dungen, PET Chairman at Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE) and a board member of Petcore Europe, warned: “The overall collection of PET bottles in Europe at 1.64 million tonnes represents a seven per cent increase on last year. We still have considerable spare recycling capacity to enable us to recycle more. However, one of the factors that will reduce our ability to utilise our available spare capacity is the increasing complexity of some collected baled bottles. Improved and standardised collection and sorting processes would help address this situation.”

In February 2013 PRE claimed that PET recycling had ‘stagnated’ at 50 per cent of capacity levels.

PET’s full report findings will be presented during the PET Network Day 2014 conference in Brussels on 9 October.