Dive Brief:
- The National Association for PET Container Resources projects that the PET bottle collection rate in the U.S. was 33% in 2023, up from 29% in 2022. It represents the highest mark since 1996, the group reported.
- NAPCOR said this reflected record-high collection of 1.96 billion pounds of bottles, but also a year-over-year decline in bottles available for recycling. Domestic sales of both virgin and recycled PET resin to non-food or beverage bottle applications, such as packaging for personal care and household cleaning products, were “down by significant margins” compared with 2022.
- Regarding recycled content use, the report said that the average level of postconsumer recycled PET used in bottles and jars in the U.S. was a record-high 16.2%, up from 13.2% in 2022, which the group said reflects growing demand for PCR. Of the total rPET used in the U.S. and Canada, 59% was in bottle applications.
Dive Insight:
Government mandates and voluntary pledges to achieve increasing levels of recycled plastic in packaging are building end markets for material. NAPCOR’s Laura Stewart, executive director of the trade association for the PET plastic packaging industry, said in a press release that the 29th edition of the group’s report “underscores the ever-growing demand for PCR content.”
The report also included data on virgin and recycled PET pricing. Prices for rPET increased in 2024 while prices for virgin PET continued to fall, “so premium for rPET has once again reached significant margins,” according to an executive summary of the report. “Expansion in mechanical recycling capacities in the U.S. and Canada is planned for the future, but there has been very little growth in operational capacity since the end of 2022, necessitating increased imports of rPET.”
NAPCOR calculates the PET bottle recycling rate annually and said there have been no recent changes to methodology. It’s informed by surveys and collaboration with consultants trade associations, individual collectors, intermediate processors, reclaimers, converters, resin producers, bottle manufacturers, public recycling officials and other types of industry members.
The PET bottle rate calculation incorporates “additional sources of data and cross-checking to refine estimates each year where we don't have direct survey inputs, so we feel increasingly confident in the data,” a NAPCOR spokesperson said in an email.
There’s little recent national data measuring how much different types of packaging are recycled. The most recent national recycling data from the U.S. EPA reflects totals from 2018.
The Recycling Partnership recently tracked more than 1.94 billion pounds of PET bottles captured through residential recycling, according to Adam Gendell, director of material advancement, estimating a residential recycling rate of 28%. TRP noted that non-bottle PET was collected at a much lower volume and rate. Meanwhile, improvements at recycling facilities through technologies like optical sorters are improving separation of different types of PET, the group noted.
“We have recently observed several major changes in reported recycling rates across multiple material groups that underscore the complexity of our recycling system — imports, exports, trends in consumption, trends in manufacturing — and have drawn attention to the underlying factors that drive recycling and the importance of measurement,” Gendell said in an emailed statement.
In addition to NAPCOR, other packaging-related industry associations have recently shared substrate-specific recycling data from 2023.
The Can Manufacturers Institute and Aluminum Association calculated the aluminum beverage can recycling rate to be 43%, which the groups said represented the lowest point in decades. And the American Forest & Paper Association estimated that the cardboard recycling rate was between 71% and 76%. AF&PA changed its longstanding methodology; as a result, the 2023 estimate was considerably lower than the rates near or above 90% for more than a decade.
TRP’s PET Recycling Coalition, established in 2022, is still aiming to achieve an acceptance rate exceeding 60% for non-bottle PET by the end of next year.
NAPCOR wrote that PET thermoform recovery in the U.S. and Canada totaled 168 million pounds, including purchases reported by domestic PET reclaimers and exports.
TRP acknowledged that coming extended producer responsibility policies are also expected to change the landscape.
“Now is our chance to pre-invest to make sure that materials with a future in the circular economy are recycled and we can support recycling rate targets,” Gendell said. “For example, by 2032, all packaging considered recyclable in California needs to meet a 65% recycling rate. And in states like Oregon, the EPR framework will not unlock the full opportunity for non-bottle PET circularity unless sufficient responsible end markets exist. More work is needed to help develop these end markets.”
