Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate
- Originally, PET (polyethylene terephthalate) is a thermoplastic polymer that is lightweight, durable, transparent, safe, shatterproof and highly recyclable.
- Recycled PET (rPET) material that comes from a recycled source rather than the original, unprocessed petrochemical feedstock.
- rPET has a much lower environmental impact than its virgin counterpart.
- Created by recycling plastics that were previously used as packaging materials such as plastic bottles & other post-consumer plastic.
- By recycling PET bottles and turning them into rPET, one can conserve a great amount of landfill space as one ton of PET waste requires 7.4 cubic yards space.
- By allowing post-industrial PET waste to circle back and re-enter the production phase, the amount of virgin raw material required for PET production decreases.
- Reduces GHG emissions by more than 79% compared to virgin PET.
- Recycling PET can also help minimise ocean-bound PET waste, which is extremely toxic to the ecosystem both as macro sized plastic waste and broken-down, micro plastic waste.
Usually, post-consumer PET is collected through programs such as curbside recycling. Once collected and sorted, it is transported to material recovery centers, where the material is cleaned and chopped up into small flakes. The flakes are then melted and made into pellets or fiber for manufacturing of new products.
Recycling PET consists of 5 consecutive stages:
1. Disposal
2. Collection and initial separation
3. Separation, shredding, cleaning and sorting
4. Mixing and formulating additives
5. Reactive compounding
rPET can be used in manufacturing a different variety of consumer products. These includes apparel fabric, polyester carpet fibers, athletic shoes, fiberfill for winter coats, sleeping bags and sweaters, upholstery, luggage, sheet and film, industrial strapping, new PET containers, automotive parts and many more.