The recycling industry for PET (polyethylene terephthalate) is huge mainly due to the advantageous physical properties and the chemical alertness of this material that also makes it suitable as a food grade packaging plastic. As the case with most plastics, PET is also derived from the polymerization reaction between an acid and an alcohol in oil. Though it was initially used as a substrate for photographic, video, and x-ray film and also as a synthetic fiber due to its excellent properties of wash and wear, it was only a few years later that its modifications began to appear in extruded and injection molded products.
The 3 D structures that were produced using a wide array of blow molding techniques in the early 1970s saw the quick adoption of this material for the manufacture and production of beverage bottles. It was an ideal material with its light weight, toughness, appropriate gas barrier performance, and incredible optical properties. The IBWA (international bottled water association) reported a 500% increases in the sales of bottle water over the last ten years with 1.5 million tons of plastic being used to bottle water annually. Apart from being the fastest growing beverage industry in the world, custom bottled water has stormed the markets in its new recyclable form through the concept of 100% recycled PET bottles.
The initiative to reduce, reuse, and recycle plastic as an eco friendly movement has given rise to the industry of plastic recycling and PET bottle recycling comprises a major segment of these ‘Go Green’ efforts. Statistics indicate that the United State’s recycling rate has risen to 32% from a low 9.6% in 1980 wherein less than 6% of plastic was recovered from its municipal waste in 2005. While the levels of production and consumption remain at an all time high, the purpose of recycling is not to promote but to decrease the overall usage of plastic.
There are numerous incentives in place to promote recycling efforts that include refunding a fraction of the cost of the beverage when the container is returned to the store along with legislations around container deposits in countries across the globe as well as in some American states. Recycled PET plastic bottles or rPET are now manufactured using processes that reduce the requirement of virgin plastic resins and they have also received the approval of the FDA and Health Canada for the food packaging due to their new levels of purity.
