Although PET bottles are already reasonably well recycled, the recycling rates for PET trays are virtually zero. Among a number of different reasons why this is the case, the design of the trays plays an important role. The waste fraction of PET trays contains a considerable amount of other polymers than PET, in particular due to the lidding films which consist in many cases of multimaterial laminates.
In addition, the material used for the trays is often based on recycled bottle-PET (rPET), which has lower quality than virgin material.
Marnix van Gurp, managing director of Brightlands Materials Center, talked about possibilities & challenges of improving the recyclability of PET trays at the ONLINE Plastic Design 4 Sustainability Conference.
View the presentation here and learn more about our solution routes for PET trays.