A new report on the state of play of the European PET market reveals the continent is on track to meet the Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (PPWR) recycling content targets for PET beverage bottles.
The average recycled content rate for beverage bottles in the European Union 27+3 region hit 24 percent in 2022. The Single-Use Plastics Directive (SUPD) and the PPWR set targets of 25 percent by 2025, 30 percent by 2030, and 65 percent by 2040 for PET bottles.
In DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg) and the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden) the average recycled content rate is estimated to be over 30 percent, while in Southeastern (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Romania) and Central Europe (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary) and in the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) the rate is well below 25 percent. Western Europe (France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom) is estimated to be in the range between 15-25 percent.
The report was developed by Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE), Natural Mineral Waters Europe (NMWE), Petcore Europe, Unesda, and ICIS. It provides the latest data and trends on the state of the PET market in Europe and confirms that 2022 was an unprecedented year for the PET and recycled PET value chains.
Data reveals that PET is on the way to circularity, but that significant disparities among EU member states remain, in particular in collection and sorting, whilst volatile prices and varying feedstock quality strongly effected the recycling market in 2022.
“The volatility which dominated the European rPET market since the pandemic was never more pronounced than in 2022,” the report reads. There was an extraordinary rise in demand in the first half of 2022, which drove competition for high-quality bales and saw a build-up of stock. Then the second half of the year saw a sharp downturn in demand, with high inventories and cheaper virgin feedstock bringing the price of recycled PET tumbling down.