DutchPETRecyclingFrom our reliable and existing source new loadings of Clear PET Bottles and Clear PET Preforms will be available soon. It concerns post production material of an exceptional high quality.
Both materials are ongoing.
If you are interested, please contact us at: info@dutchpetrecycling.com
Dutch PET Recycling BV (DPR) is a plastic recycling company with a focus on recycled PET bottles/flakes (RPET). From our social responsibility point of view, contributing to solving global pollution has a high priority. Dutch PET Recycling connects local recycling companies with the demand from the circular plastic industry. With over 30 years of experience in recycling, a huge network and knowledge base in secondary raw materials has emerged. Headquartered in the Netherlands, and with global partners and local agents, we are serving customers worldwide.
OBP certification
The vast majority (80%) of plastics that pollute oceans originate from land. Needless to say, it is easier and cheaper to collect these plastics before they end up in the oceans, than once they have sunk to the bottom of the oceans or are dispersed as a soup of micro-particles for the plastics that remain floating. It is therefore logical and important that we focus our efforts on removing Ocean Bound Plastics from the environment before it is too late.
To reinforce this commitment, Control Union (CU) has set up the OBP certification program together with NGO Zero Plastics Oceans. Detailed information can be found here and on https://www.obpcert.org/.
For Dutch PET Recycling, certification means that all the conditions for the quality mark have been met enabling DPR to sell their products with the claim “OBP certified”. And also that, together with our successful certified suppliers we can cover a large part of the chain.
But there is more:
Added value
The added value of OBP certification lies mainly in the transparency of the entire recycling process. The new end product or the new raw material for a producer can be demonstrably traced back to the moment it was collected as waste, before it threatened to end up in the ocean.
The sad images of the ‘plastic soup’ are in everyone’s mind. Fortunately, there are good initiatives to clean it up. By preventing plastic from disappearing into the ocean in the first place, the time will come when the oceans will be clean and remain so. Contributing to improving the environment appeals to everyone. Both consumers and producers that work with OBP material also want to be associated with it.
The added value extends throughout the chain. From a better infrastructure for solid waste management, major benefits for the local economy and public health, to better working conditions for the collectors of the waste.
There is also added value in being certified by Control Union. CU is a global company that is independent of any other company in the entire process. The OBP certificate is therefore, provided the audit has been passed successfully, an irrefutable proof of transparency and professionalism. The assessment criteria are tough and contribute to further awareness of a transparent process, a higher quality level and the right to use the OBP logo.
Dutch PET Recycling is proud of the certification it has achieved!
This article gives you good examples why plastics and climate are an ideal combination. Especially using recycled PET or Food Grade pellets.
When it comes to climate change mitigation, plastics have a great story to tell.
The change will only succeed if it drives also the transition towards a low carbon, resource efficient and circular economy. For this to happen, plastics enable the innovations that are needed by a sustainability strategy – such as the European Green Deal – to deliver.
Example 1. Building & construction (renovation)
Plastics are a springboard for the renovation wave in the building sector as they enable big energy savings and are carbon efficient. Plastic insulation improves the energy efficiency of your home, which translates into a positive impact on climate.
In fact, it saves up to 80% of your energy consumption and 250 times more energy than used to produce it.
Example 2. Sustainable mobility
You may not be aware of where plastics are used in your car, but they are doing their job for you – in car body parts, airbags, carpets, electrification, under the hood, to name but a few.
Thanks to its lightweight properties, plastics contribute efficiently to fuel savings which translate into lower CO2 emissions in diverse fields of transport, including electric mobility.
Plastics enable up to 35% fuel savings compared to components made from other materials.
Example 3. Preserving food from farm to fork
Food waste is one of the biggest challenges of our society. Plastic packaging saves food by protecting it from external factors – damage, deterioration, spoilage from farm to fork and ensuring hygiene.
Research shows that, if food were packed in a material other than plastics, the related energy consumption would double, greenhouse gas emissions would nearly triple, overall weight of packaging would quadruple, and food waste would increase.
The weight of plastic packaging has been reduced by more than 35% over a 20-year period. Lightweight packaging means lighter loads or fewer lorries needed to ship the same amount of products, helping to reduce transportation energy, decrease emissions and lower shipping costs.
Example 4. Transforming the energy sector
Plastics enable the production of clean and renewable energy as windmill blades and solar panels are made with plastics.
In a nutshell, plastics can make the difference by providing solutions for affordable renovation of households, sustainable transport, easier access to safe food, clean, reliable and affordable energy.
Let’s drive circularity together!
We would like to share some thoughts within the chemical industry on plastic recycling. It is based on an article of Joseph Chang from ICIS.
The chemical industry must accelerate investment in plastics recycling to achieve scale as activist and government pressure mounts. The pace of change is too slow. The industry has to move a lot faster before society looks to the producers as the problem and who have to fix it.
There is no technical challenge. Thermodynamics – the science behind the process – is sound. There are plenty of prototypes, catalysts and small-scale but fully developed chemical recycling processes that can convert plastics to pyrolysis oil, and this can then be used to make pellets.
The real challenge is an economic solution and an infrastructure to collect the plastic waste, sort it and bring it into the process. Activists and industry have to come together to solve this. Also public policy has to play a role. Some kind of fund has to be established so that consumer behaviour can be changed to collect these plastics and bring them to recycling locations. The industry thinks it has a lot of time to solve this problem. But something has to be done rather quickly. Likely public policy will force action, restricting the sale and export of virgin plastics. That would be an option – basically don’t allow exports unless the pellets have a recycled content of at least 30%!
Another challenge is the social impact in local municipalities. Companies and governments must also consider the social impact of waste collection and plastics recycling. Having large-scale chemical recycling facilities where plastic waste is directed to may not be feasible. Building an ecosystem can technically be done. But is it also possible to influence consumer behaviour in less than a year?
The whole original article by Joseph Chang, 13-Apr-21, can be read on www.icis.com (News/Insight & Analysis).
Let’s drive circularity together!
Large companies, organizations and trade associations join initiatives to increase the amount of recycled polyester content to their products. Last week you could read in an article of ICIS about Textile Exchange working together with the United nations to “commit to bring the percentage of recycled polyester up from 14% to 45% at 17.1 million metric tonnes by 2025.” PET is the most widely used fibre in the apparel industry.
So this is very good news for all the PET Recyclers.
This week UNESDA Soft Drinks Europe announced that beverage packaging will be fully circular by 2030. Meaning PET bottles will be made from 50% recycled and/or renewable PET by 2025, and move to 100% by 2030. These targets go above and beyond the EU’s mandate of 25% recycled content in all PET bottles by 2025, rising to 30% recycled content by 2030.
UNESDA also presented a wish list of areas for support from the EU and national governments, including:
Finally we are accelerating for a circular economy, especially within the RPET business!
Also read the whole stories on www.icis.com:
Or just an accelerator in professionalizing the branch?
The questions to be answered:
Are you willing to pay more for rPET if it’s been labeled as Ocean Bound Plastic ?
And what if some of the rPET doesn’t apply to the definition ?
Will traceability and certification be standard in a quality program ?
The term Ocean Bound plastics leads in almost every case back to Jenna Jambeck. The definition of Ocean-bound plastic was defined and published in Science in 2015:
Nowadays companies are offering ocean-bound plastic as an alternative option anduse her definition as a basis for their marketing activities and corporate social responsibility programs. Most of the companies made their own interpretation of the definition and changed or added specifications!
Needless to say that collecting these plastics before they reach oceans is a useful initiative. It is also easier and cheaper than once they have drowned in the bottom of oceans or are dispersed as a soup of micro particles. It is commonly admitted that 80% of plastic in the seas, comes from land.
Using the definition of OBP will introduce the aspect of traceability. It gives converters, buyers, manufacturers and consumers a better insight in the origins of the material next to a better feeling for consumers that they are doing the right thing! Plastic waste and pollution originate from several different sources. Besides Ocean Bound Plastic, also plastic is collected as a by-product of production and manufacturing, in streams, rivers flowing to the ocean, material washed up on coasts and of course in the ocean itself.
Local communities in at-risk areas where plastic will end up in the oceans will profit from the term Ocean Bound Plastic. They will be incentivized to collect, sort and process plastic waste into high-quality recycled material. Also consumers with the option to purchase products packaged in recycled material that has been proven to come from at-risk regions of the world will feel good to contribute to the reduction of waste and pollution.
The same consumers will ask for traceability and preferably a third party certification to be sure they bought the right, more expensive, goods. But can traceability be 100% guaranteed and what will be the consequences for communities and initiatives outside of the area defined for Ocean Bound Plastic ?
The process of making it traceable and also certified makes the branch more professional and helps to achieve quality standards. It also contributes to a better awareness of our worldwide problem with waste and pollution. But these initiatives in the process also make the material more expensive. The questions I have:
In essence, we should pay more for material from an at-risk area because we prevented the material from entering the ocean. However, the converters and traders are under pressure from brands that want them to supply recycled content at the lowest possible price. It will be a financially challenging situation for recyclers.
Let’s find it out together! Dutch PET Recycling is also working with suppliers offering Ocean Bound Plastic.
EU leaders have struck a deal on a landmark corona virus recovery package that will involve the European Commission undertaking massive borrowing on the capital markets. Part of this deal is a tax on plastic packaging wastes. Finally good news for the plastic recycling industry!
Read the whole story: By Stefan Baumgarten, 21-Jul-20 17:11
LONDON (ICIS), As part of their €750bn coronavirus pandemic recovery package, EU leaders agreed on a new EU tax on plastic packaging wastes.
The tax, to be introduced as of 1 January 2021, will be calculated on the weight of nonrecycled plastic packaging waste “with a call rate of €0.80/kilogramme with a mechanism to avoid excessively regressive impact on national contributions.” Proceeds from the tax will go to the EU.
German environmental group Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) welcomed the tax, saying it was long overdue. However, DUH said that the tax rate was “too timid”. “We need a price that really causes a change in direction,” said DUH director general Jurgen Resch. “And we need regulations that, above all, end the littering of nature and cities with unnecessary disposable products, be it disposable plastic bottles, plastic bags or disposable coffee-to-go cups,” he said.
Also, instead of basing the tax on the weight of nonrecycled plastic packaging waste, it would be more effective to tax new, virgin primary plastics in packaging as soon as it is put into circulation, DUH said.
Trade group PlasticsEurope could not immediately be reached for comment. Last week, German chemical producers’ trade group VCI warned against the introduction of EU tax on plastics packaging waste that is not recycled. Legislative measures have driven firms throughout the petrochemical industry and the packaging sector to adopt increasingly ambitious sustainability targets which often go beyond EU mandated minimums.
Many plastic bottle manufacturers are targeting at least 50% recycled material by 2030, or shifting to other materials such as bio-based or non-plastic alternatives which often have a larger environmental impact than plastic because of higher energy usage, CO2 output and weight.
The recycled polyethylene terephthalate (R-PET) chain is perhaps the key example of the extent of the shortage of material because it is currently the most widely recycled plastic in Europe and has the most developed market and infrastructure, Victory said.
Despite a collection rate of 63% in 2018, the growth rate in collection has slowed at less than 3%/year. ICIS analysis shows to achieve the single-use plastic (SUP) target of 77% the annual growth rate needs to be 9%/year, and this does not even factor in the increasing contamination rates within the region. Cross contamination from other plastics and losses due to the mechanical process, has seen average wastage rates across Europe rise from 25% to around 30-35% according to market estimates.
Other sectors such as fibres and chemical recycling projects are increasingly seeking a higher share of postconsumer polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste.
Packaging producers using materials such as polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) have also investigated a switch to other materials including PET because of the perception, caused by the headline collection rates, that R-PET material – particularly food-grade material – is in abundant supply.
An additional limit for the plastic bottle market is the lack of food-grade pellet (FGP) production, which currently stands at around 300,000 tonnes/year in Europe, or around 9% of overall PET plastic bottle demand. Coupled with this, to achieve European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) approval, 95% of the material used in reprocessing must have been sourced from food-contact applications, and there must be full and provable traceability throughout the chain.
For R-PET the major feedstock is used plastic drinks bottles, so reaching the 95% threshold is not currently a challenge. But for other recycled material where multiple forms of waste are collected in kerbside schemes, proving provenance of material to reach the 95% content threshold is prohibitive.
For recycled PE (R-PE), for example, the only post-consumer-derived source of food grade pellets is the UK where milk bottles provide an easily separated stream of waste.
The capacity for food grade R-PET is set to increase with limited projects coming on stream into 2021 yet investment is still required to grow capacity at the same rate as demand. FGP usage must triple on 2018 volumes to achieve the SUP 25% target, clearly a challenge for the industry given the pandemic and macroeconomics it faces.
Structural shortages of material, along with technical limitations such as opacity of material and loss of tensile strength, have led companies to explore other avenues for reaching sustainability commitments such as chemical recycling or bio-based materials.
State Secretary Stientje van Veldhoven (Ministry for Infrastructure and Water Management in the Netherlands) starts a new offensive against packaging waste together with manufacturers. The aim is to reduce the use of packaging, to stimulate reuse of packaging and to improve the quality of collection and recycling.
It concerns the introduction of European rules, whereby Van Veldhoven goes one step further together with the packaging industry in the Netherlands. In addition to introducing the European recycling targets, it has agreed concrete circular targets with packaging companies up to and including 2025 by adding reuse to recycling. The Netherlands is the first European country to set circular objectives in this way.
Read the full story (in Dutch):
Van Veldhoven start nieuw offensief tegen verpakkingsafval
Staatssecretaris Stientje van Veldhoven start samen met producenten een nieuw offensief tegen verpakkingsafval. Dit schrijft zij aan de Tweede Kamer. Doel hiervan is het gebruik van verpakkingen terug te dringen, hergebruik van verpakkingen te stimuleren en de kwaliteit van inzameling en recycling te verbeteren.
Het gaat om invoering van Europese regels, waarbij van Veldhoven samen met het verpakkend bedrijfsleven in Nederland nog een stap verder gaat. Naast het invoeren van de Europese recycle doelstellingen heeft zij tot en met 2025 concrete circulaire doelstellingen met het verpakkend bedrijfsleven afgesproken door hergebruik aan recycling toe te voegen. Nederland is het eerste Europese land dat op deze manier circulaire doelstellingen vastlegt.
Van Veldhoven: “Recyclen is goed, hergebruik is nóg beter. Het Nederlandse verpakkende bedrijfsleven behoort internationaal tot de koplopers in het slimmer omgaan met materialen en het besparen van CO2. Dit verdient een compliment. Samen werken we toe naar een schone, groene toekomst.”
Cees de Mol van Otterloo, directeur van het Afvalfonds Verpakkingen: “In Nederland realiseren we voor verpakkingen al hoge recycleresultaten. Met de nieuwe recycledoelstellingen wordt een nieuwe stip op de horizon gezet op weg naar een circulaire economie voor verpakkingen.”
Het gaat om nieuwe afspraken over recycling en hergebruik van glas, kunststof, papier en karton, metaal en hout. Het EU-recyclingdoel voor alle verpakkingen samen is zeventig procent voor 2030. Nederland haalt deze doelstelling in 2021 al en legt de lat hoger. In 2025 moet in Nederland 74 procent gerecycled en/of hergebruikt worden.
Eén van de maatregelen om dit doel te halen, is door het scheiden voor burgers eenvoudiger te maken. Met uitzondering van glas en oud-papier, horen straks alle lege verpakkingen bij het PMD (Plastic, Metaal en Drankkartons). De inzameling van glazen bierflesjes is en blijft een vrijwillig systeem. De laatste jaren doken echter steeds meer bierflesjes op zonder statiegeld. Door hergebruik mee te tellen, is er nu een prikkel voor producenten om statiegeld op deze flesjes te behouden en uit te bereiden.
Nederland is vooralsnog het enige Europese land dat, naast recycle doelstellingen, ook ambitieuze circulaire doelstellingen samen met het verpakkend bedrijfsleven heeft afgesproken. De Nederlandse circulaire -en Europese recycledoelen worden wettelijk vastgelegd en per 2021 ingevoerd. In 2025 wordt de werking van beide doelstellingen geëvalueerd.
Van Veldhoven: “We zijn als Nederland goed op weg, maar we willen toe naar alle verpakkingen recyclen en producenten stimuleren over te gaan tot hergebruik. Met deze circulaire doelstellingen zetten we een forse stap in de goede richting voor een schone, groene circulaire economie.”
Does the competition become more equal for rPET vs virgin? Or will the total use of plastic be reduced in favor of alternative (packaging) material?
An interesting article about virgin plastic tax, shared by DutchPETRecycling.
By Matt Tudball (ICIS), Additional reporting by Caroline Murray
Spain’s proposed tax on virgin plastics, announced recently as part of the government’s circular economy strategy, has received a mixed reaction from the European polymers markets. A series of measures that make up the strategy is expected to include a €0.45/kg tax on non-reusable plastic packaging following similar measures adopted elsewhere in Europe including the UK and Italy.
Sources in the market had a lukewarm outlook on the benefit of the tax – the first to be announced by an EU member state since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak – with several comparing it to the €450/ton Italian virgin plastics tax – which has been postponed until 2021 in light of the pandemic.
“We used plastic products during the covid-19 emergency and now they are thinking of a tax on plastics from January 2021. We are at the level Italy was a year ago,” a Spanish polymers trader said.
“It’s the same discussion Italy had. They asked for €1/kg then reduced the figure after a huge fight between the plastics sector and the government… and now we will have to go through the same fight. Nobody learns from others,” the trader added.
Others were less pessimistic. “This is a tax paid by everybody – everyone is in the same conditions to compete,” one polyethylene terephthalate (PET) producer said.
“The second point is how strong PET material is versus the other [polymers]… I don’t believe that people will go to the supermarket to buy a glass bottle of water. At the end of the day, we will all pay more and the government will get more money. If we all compete on the same terms, it’s more than welcome,” the producer added.
It currently is unclear whether products with a certain percentage of recycled content will be exempt, but this looks likely if Spain follow the same principles as the UK and Italy. In terms of the impact on the recycled market, a buyer of recycled PET (R-PET) believes it may increase competition for post-consumer bottles, the feedstock for the R-PET market.
“Bottles will be scarce, that is for sure. Either collection increases exponentially or we will all be running after the same feedstock material,” the buyer said.
The Italian tax on virgin plastics with less than 30% recycled material was meant to incentivize bottle producers and others to increase the amount of recycled plastic in their product. But as with the UK tax, there are concerns about the size of the tax and whether it will be enough to encourage converters to move away from virgin given current low PET prices.
Using the example of the UK tax, a UK-based PET buyer said, “£200/ton is not enough. If the premium to use recycled content is £600-700, it won’t make people use recycled material – unless people do it for marketing purposes.”
On the other hand, recyclers are worried that the tax will deter consumers from buying plastic products altogether – and more to goods packaged in paper, glass or cardboard.
Will we have a new recycled PET stream? Besides Clear, Light Blue and Green also Opaque might become interesting. Dutch PET Recycling shares this article of PETplanet.
Bottle-to-bottle recycling of light barrier white opaque PET
Bottles in opaque PET are increasingly replacing other material grades, especially in markets such as dairy and other sectors where demand is increasing. Thus far, a main concern was that the white opaque PET would lose one of the most important characteristics of PET, recyclability, but Spanish company Novapet is demonstrating that white opaque monolayer bottles can be separated and recycled into new bottles again.
In order to demonstrate the feasibility and viability of the monolayer white PET recycling, Novapet has created, for the first time, a dedicated recycling stream of this material in a commercial recycling facility, sorting and recycling white opaque PET bottles into white flakes from standard bales collected in Spain. The recycling process is based on IR/VIS sorters, which are available in the majority of plants. It will require a detailed market study to assess the amount of input material and to adapt the configuration of the sorting system.
The white flakes can be decontaminated according EFSA requirements and used again as raw material for the production of a recycled opacifier masterbatch or directly to rPET mono-layer bottles. Various formulas would have to be applied depending on final use and light barrier requirements, to maintain the same machine throughput and without impacting properties, functionality and colour.
Novapet’s specialist team have technically validated that it is possible to reprocess the white flakes, thus obtaining new white opaque resin and masterbatch formulations. All these formulations have been characterised along the entire process, controlling the key variables, in order to assure good processability and the decontamination conditions in the SSP reactor. Thus the process demonstrates that the recycling process to produce white recycled PET is able to be used for manufacturing containers in the food industry.
The new family of recycled products, rDCU and rDairy, will be commercially available by the end of 2020.
The complete article can be read in PETplanet Insider 6 / 2020