According to a report from the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR), PET bottles and thermoforms were among the most post-consumer PET that were ever collected in the US in 2021.
For the first time, the amount of bottles collected in the US that year exceeded 1.9 billion lb. Additionally, post-consumer PET collection through deposit redemption schemes increased by 46% annually.
In 2021, the amount of thermoform collected in the US and Canada also increased to a record-high 142 million pounds. According to NAPCOR’s 2021 PET Recycling Report, during 2020 and 2021, the US PET recycling rate increased from 27.1% to 28.6%. During the same time span, the North American rate rose from 34.2% to 36.8%.
The increase in PET consciousness, appreciation, usage, and reuse has reached two significant turning points, according to Laura Stewart, executive director of NAPCOR, in a prepared statement. The increase in 2021 is a strong sign that recycling services affected by pandemic disruptions are starting to resume.
It is also crucial to note that the North American rate exceeds the 30% recycling threshold recommended by the Ellen McArthur Foundation, Stewart continued. According to many industry experts, this serves as the post-consumer criterion for demonstrating that recycling is effective in numerous regions with at least 400 million people.
When converters used 11 million lb of PET thermoforms to create new thermoforms in 2021, thermoformed PET trays made their first significant strides toward circularity.
PET reclaimers, businesses that purchase post-consumer PET and offer clean, recovered PET flake or pellet, processed the record number of post-consumer PET thermoforms gathered in 2021 in the United States and Canada. Producers of recycled PET (rPET) textile fibre faced greater costs and more intense competition in 2021, but they nevertheless managed to produce more than 1 billion lb of rPET fibre, in part by acquiring more colourful and post-industrial rPET flake.
The demand for RPET fibre in the US and Canada was outstripped by the consumption of rPET for bottles (food, beverage, and other) in both 2020 and 2021. In 2021, the largest rPET consumer came from the food and beverage industry as a whole.
NAPCOR keeps up its efforts to inform people about PET and recycling. The more PET is publicised and correct, consistent recycling levels are encouraged, Stewart says, the closer the US will get to matching worldwide recycling rates and, most significantly, the more influence they will have on the globe.
