PETrecycling CZ - Excerpt from the TNO-Report (for PET bottles only)

The European Union developed a Directive on Packaging & Packaging Waste (94/62/EC), that came into force in 1994. A European Directive was necessary to remove obstacles to trade arising from the range of regulations within a single market. By 2001 packaging in general must achieve an overall recycling rate of 25 - 45% with a minimum for any given material (e.g. plastics) of 15%.

The EC Directive sets no targets for individual polymers and makes no distinction between used household and commercial/industrial packaging. In total over 50% of packaging waste must be directed to recovery processes that create value from (valorise) the waste. (This includes means such as recycling and waste-to-energy).

Countries must refer back to the EU before exceeding 65% recovery or 45% recycling of packaging to ensure that such action does not unfairly disadvantage other member states. All EU member states must have introduced systems for collection and recovery of packaging either by the year 2001 (or 2005 in the case of some member states). Most countries have already adopted strategies in response to the Packaging Waste Directive, which have included the setting up of comprehensive collection programmes for household packaging waste.

This Appendix describes the way European countries organise their collection and recycling of post consumer packaging waste. Of these countries, twelve introduced a Green Dot system in which a packager has to pay fees to a national packaging recovery company. Two other countries organised their recycling activities via a covenant system in which it is the producers responsibility to collect and recycle the packaging. Some other countries introduced their own specific system.

As described above, the Green Dot system is a system in which a packager has to pay Green Dot fees to a national packaging recovery company.

In order to prevent the creation of trade barriers as the European Packaging Directive was implemented, the Packaging Recovery Organisation Europe (PRO Europe) was established to award the mark “Der Grüne Punkt” or the Green Dot as it is known in English, and to establish it as a European trade mark. The Green Dot trademark is solely a financing mark and, as such, is neither a recycling symbol nor an environmental label. With the Green Dot fees, the national collection and recovery schemes for packaging waste (including glass, paper/carton, metals, plastics etc.) are financed:

Each company wishing to transfer the obligations imposed on it by the Packaging Ordinance to a national green dot company becomes a licensee of the “green dot company”. The company, which can be packaging manufacturers, fillers, importers or retailers, pays licence fees depending on the quantity and type of packaging it puts onto the market. The fee is dependent on the efficiency and scope of the collecting systems, percentage of population covered and percentage of green dot licensees in the country. These licence fees are used to finance the waste management services.

Joining the national green dot system means a company is exempt from its obligations under the legislation, which are intricate and comprehensive. As proof of the participation the licensee has the right to attach the green dot to his packaging.

In order to ensure the efficiency of the green dot system the Packaging Ordinance of each country specifies recycling and recovery quotas/targets. According to the Austrian Ordinance for example, 20% of the plastic packaging material placed on the Austrian market in the years '96-'98 must be delivered to a recycling plant.

With the Green Dot system great importance is attached to the so-called guarantors at the interface between sorting and recycling. This is because they have contractually guaranteed to accept and recycle the material forwarded to them. For each material group (plastics, glass, metals etc) a guarantor is responsible for the recycling of that material. The guarantors for plastics recycling realised that they needed to exchange information about collection and recycling and, if possible, to co-operate in order to be better able to meet the EU directive's regulations.

For this, EPRO, the European Association of Plastics Recycling and Recovery Organisations, was founded. This platform organises meetings in which the members can participate and discuss their items. National organisations participation in EPRO are:

Of these organisations those from Italy, Finland and Sweden are not a member of the Green Dot system. However, also for these national organisations the exchange of information is an important factor. All national systems are organising the collection of packaging waste from households and similar facilities. In most countries also the collection of waste for trade and industry has also been developed. In Norway and Sweden (and in The Netherlands and Ireland, two non-EPRO members) plastic waste from agriculture is also organised. All common types of plastic wastes are collected, except for the German system, which is collecting according to the shape of the product, and the French system, which only collects bottles (consisting of PET, PVC and HDPE).

In The Netherlands and Norway a covenant is set between the Ministry of Environment and trade and industry. As a general rule, the strategy of the Dutch (and Norwegian) government has been to negotiate with industry in order to implement producer responsibility through voluntary agreements rather than traditional regulations. The voluntary agreements, or covenants, between government and industry associations are meant to implement the so-called Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) within sectors of industry, mainly in areas where legislation already exists and government can exercise control such as through issuing licenses. In this manner, covenants serve as a management tool by providing a specific implementation programme for the allocation of roles, funding and goals within a more general legal framework. As an example, the Dutch situation will be described. All Dutch companies in the packaging and packaging goods sector are subject to the Dutch packaging and packaging waste regulation, the Packaging Covenant II. The regulation introduced producer responsibility in a statutory framework (formerly it was voluntary), making it obligatory for everyone who markets a product for the first time to recover 65% of packaging waste (material recycling + incineration with energy recovery), and of this at least 45% by material recycling. For the plastics waste in The Netherlands the recycling percentage to be achieved in 2001 is 27% in order to reach the overall target of 65% for all materials (for example the target for glass is 90%). An essential element of the regulation is, that all individual obligations lapse for businesses (producers as well as importers) which are party to a covenant: these companies will contribute to achieving the targets agreed but will not be held individually responsible for meeting the targets, notifying the measures taken, reporting on these and monitoring the final results. The covenant ensures that the targets will be met for all materials. This is a strong pobídkové, as the obligations in the regulation are complicated and costly for individual enterprises to implement. In The Netherlands most attention is paid to the collection of post-use industrial and commercial packaging. The reason for this is that it represents the most practical and economic part of the packaging waste to collect and recycle:

For films and EPS the industry is itself responsible for the collection and recycling. The Dutch industry set up organisations for implementing the collection and processing of end-of-life packaging products on their behalf. These representative organisations are financed through funding from the companies involved, and are organised under the foundation "Vereniging Milieubeheer Kunststofverpakkingen" (VMK), the party who undersigned the integration covenant on behalf of the plastics packaging industry. VMK is the environmental management organisation for the plastics packaging industry in The Netherlands. The one waste stream from households included in the covenant, PET bottles, are collected at a rate of more than 95% through a deposit system. The enforcement of the Dutch Covenant is slow to develop with a clear increase of recycling plastic packaging not yet visible. As is the case with the green dot systems, the Norwegian and Dutch systems have guaranteed purchasing of collected plastics by the recyclers.

An example of another system is the compliance scheme of Valpak in the United Kingdom. Valpak was the first multi-material, multi- product recovery organisation in the UK. Valpak’s business plan stated that its main activities would be contracting with accredited reprocessors and other waste holders to fund the recycling or recovery of packaging waste in exchange for documentary evidence of compliance to match the total obligation of all its members. Revenue from Valpak contracts was expected to be used by local authorities, waste management companies, reprocessors and joint venture projects to justify additional capital expenditure for collection, sorting and reprocessing capacity. Valpak has in fact established partnerships with two major waste management companies. This results in direct access to household and commercial/industrial waste collection, landfill operations and waste-to-energy plants. A basic principle of the Regulations is that companies which recycle packaging that becomes waste on their premises can use Packaging Recovery Notes (or PRN’s) or other evidence of recovery to meet part of their obligations. Valpak thus acquires PRN’s and other evidence of members’ own recycling activities on a ‘cost neutral’ basis.

In all national systems one or more of the following methods are used for the collection of packaging waste from households, industry, offices etc.:

The lightweight fraction of the waste is mostly collected via two models: kerbside collection and a bring system. In the kerbside collection, lightweight packaging is collected in yellow (sometimes light blue) bags or bins and picked up from the individual households. In the bring system, consumers take the packaging they have collected to recycling stations or containers that have been installed in the vicinity. Valorlux in Luxembourg, for example, collects plastics only door to door, but they note that container parks will offer a useful and important complementary collection system. ARA in Austria and DSD in Germany, for example, already use the combination of container and door to door collection. A dense network of around 860,000 collection containers have been installed for the bring system, whereas for the kerbside system consumers use yellow bags of bins. Deposit systems are mainly used for collecting PET bottles. These deposits may be charged on both refillable and single-use PET bottles.

See addresses and links of national recycling and recovery organisations in main report.

PET bottles have become the main substitute for glass bottles for the packaging of mineral waters and soft drinks. Also all kinds of other liquid food and non-food products are packed in PET bottles nowadays. The advantage of PET bottles over glass is that they are lightweight and much less breakable.

This Appendix mainly deals with PET bottles (1.5 - 2 litre) for mineral waters and soft drinks. Most of the PET for these bottles in Europe is consumed in countries such as Italy, United Kingdom, France and Spain, where the PET bottles are mainly one-way (single use) bottles. This is in contrast to other countries such as The Netherlands, Scandinavia, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where PET- bottles are used in refillable delivery systems, in some cases in combination with a one-way system.

PETCORE (PET Container Recycling Europe) is a non-profit making association, founded (1994) and funded by PET resin producers and bottle makers, which promotes the recycling of PET containers in Europe. PETCORE assists authorities or communities interested in establishing recycling programmes that include PET bottles, or those willing to incorporate PET bottles into an existing programme. In addition, PETCORE can assist communities with information about the processing, reclamation and remanufacture of post-consumer PET bottles.

The collection schemes for PET bottles - partly initiated by the European Directive - are now beginning to yield higher returns. In 1999 219,000 ton PET bottles were collected for recycling in Europe, which is 25% more than in 1998.

Three types of collection schemes for PET bottles exist in Europe: Drop-off without deposit (64%), drop-off with deposit (13%) and kerbside bank collection (23%).

In Belgium the bottles are collected in PMD-bags (plastics, metals and drink packaging) through a kerbside collection system. This resulted in over 13,000 tons of PET being collected and sent for recycling in 1998.

Refill and deposit is most common in Scandinavian countries, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland (not for single use bottles) and Austria.

PET deposit programmes are achieving very high return rates (up to and even over 95%) with very low levels of contamination.

In Austria and Germany (both countries support the green dot system) the deposit and kerbside/bottle bank systems exist side by side.

In Italy over 40% of the population had access in 1998 to some 24,500 PET “igloos” or containers. Bottle banks are becoming well established in countries such as Switzerland (over 12,000 drop-off points for single use bottles), France (over 5,000 sites) and the UK (over 3,000 sites).

An important difference between these collection systems is the type of bottle collected. In deposit systems only PET bottles for water and soft drinks will be collected.

In all other systems this waste stream may be 'contaminated' with PET bottles for other products, like oil products, as well as bottles made out of other plastics. This may require the use of different recycling processes in order to obtain the required quality of flakes.

The collected non-refill bottles in Austria, Germany, France and Italy are sorted by material group into PET, HDPE and/or PVC and then split up into coloured and clear bottles.

In the UK, bottles collected through a deposit scheme may be sorted manually in the sorting centre or by sophisticated reverse vending machines at the retail point. Bottles from drop-off or kerbside schemes will be taken to a local sorting centre.

In manual sorting PET bottles are hand picked from a sorting line, using simple features to identify PET bottles.

More recently, high speed X-ray and near infrared sensors linked to a central processor and ejector system are being used to speed up sorting and to reduce costs. Automatic bottle sorting systems handling over 1 ton per hour are operating in France, Germany, UK, Italy and Switzerland. The US Environmental Protection Agency has identified cost savings of some 25%. After sorting the graded bottles are compacted into bales for transport to reprocessors, reducing the volume by up to a factor 10. The recycling of PET bottles is relatively simple with a limited number of process steps (shredding, cleaning and separation of foreign materials). Currently, most collected PET bottles are cleaned (washed), flaked and either used directly or blended with virgin polymer, before processing in a similar way to virgin polymer.

For PET recycling the development of a flake separation system to eliminate the last bits of PVC contamination was a technological breakthrough to solve a major quality problem. The bottles designed according to the design for recycling rules of PETCORE will give, potentially, the highest quality RPET (Recycled PET). More recently also other recycling processes have been developed using a combination of extrusion and solid state polymerisation resulting in a regranulate with a high purity as well as a considerable higher IV. Such regranulate can be used directly in the production of new (also food approved) packaging. In the last two decades a lot of experience has been obtained on PET recycling, enhancing the technological possibilities and resulting in more and more outlets for RPET, depending on market prices.

To enable a further growth in RPET sales it is essential that new outlets are developed. The fibre industry is still one of the most important markets for RPET. In addition, the availability of 'food grade' RPET will possibly enhance the use of RPET in new soft drink bottles. This is, of course, dependent on market prices. Other markets are strapping, sheet and non-food contact containers. Furthermore, possibilities of outlets in the automotive and transport industries are being studied. A renewed interest in chemical recycling (also known as feedstock recycling) of PET resulted in the development of new processes (e.g. the Eastman process). These processes might influence the mechanical recycling of PET. However, these technologies are still more expensive than mechanical recycling and are regarded to have potentially better opportunities in the recycling of more 'difficult' PET waste streams such as bottles with barrier layers or coloured bottles. Compared to mechanical recycling, chemical recycling of PET is to date only applied on a limited scale.

From an economic point of view the recycling of PET bottles was attractive because of low transportation costs and the residual value of the PET material after use, especially when the virgin prices were high. However, the profitability of PET recycling is inextricably linked to the price of virgin PET as supplied to end-user markets. With low prices in 1998 it must be remarked that even with a 25% increase in recycling figures and a slight price increase for 1999 the profitability of PET recycling is still not sufficient to guarantee a strong financial position. The collection and sorting costs of post-consumer waste show a wide range from around 350 – 800 euro/ton, depending on country and chosen collection system. According to PETCORE the average costs are:

This results in a total of 725 euro per ton. PETCORE aims a total cost of at 550 euro per ton by reducing the collection costs to 175 euro per ton. With the current (Q1, 1999) low prices for virgin PET, the recycling of PET bottles is economically less attractive than a few years ago. It is estimated that a PET virgin price of 900 euro/ton gives RPET a healthy chance. The price for virgin PET declined during 1998 and early 1999 for several reasons, such as reduction in the market prices of raw materials, excess in production capacity for PET in Europe and a strong inflow of low priced material from Asia. All these factors changed in 1999 resulting in increasing virgin PET prices. Another point is that also the export of PET bottles to Asia will keep having a strong influence on the European market for virgin PET and RPET.

Member states have introduced or are developing national measures to meet the EC Directive targets (see Appendix 1) and other related local objectives. Often, the national targets for PET containers are more demanding than the broad directive targets. Economic instruments are increasingly being employed to encourage waste minimisation and packaging recovery. Examples of economic instruments are householder charging and Eco-taxes. In the case of householder charging the local governments require householders to buy special bags in which to set out refuse. Applying a direct cost to the householder for the generation of waste encourages greater recycling. This can reduce the total costs to the municipality and the householder.

In The Netherlands consumers were already used to the deposit systems for glass bottles for soft drinks as well as milk, yoghurt and dairy products. The change to PET bottles did not change this habit. Also in other countries consumers are willing to return bottles to bottle bank and collection centres. This situation differs to a large extent from country to country. The soft drink industry strongly supports the collection and recycling of PET bottles, as they are aware of the green image that goes with it. On the other hand it should be remarked that - possibly due to a small economic disadvantage - producers do not always comply with the ‘design for recycling rules’ of PETCORE, which hampers recyclers to deliver good RPET quality. As for the consumers, it may be remarked that, knowing that PET bottles can be recycled into e.g. useful products like sweaters, they can be stimulated to actually collect the bottles. Spreading this kind of information is one of the other tasks of PETCORE. The co-operation between collection industry, recyclers and reprocessing industry is shaping up well. PETCORE effectively stimulates this chain co-operation. A good communication between chain parties results in higher quality streams for mechanical recycling. Information about the (reasons for the) required sorting quality as well as control on the sorting centres (which is sometimes lacking) reduces the recycling costs. So the communication between sorting centres and recyclers contributes to higher quality flakes. The higher the quality of the flakes the higher value products (e.g. new bottles) can be produced of the RPET. In some countries consumers are not aware of the benefits of PET recycling and don't co-operate in the separate collection of PET bottles. This results in PET bottles disappearing into the residual fraction of their household waste. In other countries the communication about these subjects is very good, resulting in high collection rates, even in bring systems. Also deposit (bring) systems result in a very effective collection of in general high quality bottle waste.

Despite the low prices for virgin PET, the volume of produced RPET has strongly increased in recent years. The reason is that, driven by EU legislation for packaging, the collection of PET bottles is firmly stimulated by the newly founded collection organisations in a number of countries. New recycling plants as well as production plants for reprocessing RPET have been erected. PETCORE plays an important role in helping to set up new collection and recycling schemes.

An analysis of the different aspects (economic, legal, social and organisational) of the collection and recycling of PET bottles in combination with a selection of relevant remarks made in interviews and questionnaires results in a listing of the relevant progress and blocking factors. (See table A5.1). On basis of the information in the preceding paragraphs and the summary of the progress/blocking factors, the decisive criteria to set up a recycling scheme for PET bottles have been identified and weighted according to the procedure described in the main report. (See table A5.2.)

The recycling of PET with its high intrinsic quality and with a moderate contamination level results in a good quality RPET with a high IV and an excellent transparency (that is, if the flakes are further extruded in combination with SSP treatment). This RPET can both replace virgin PET 1:1 in specific applications or can be added to virgin PET in 10 – 40% concentrations in other applications. This aspect of virgin substitution contributes highly to the positive eco-profile of PET bottle recycling. Otherwise the RPET can be used in fibre applications. Design for recycling, although not applied by all producers of soft drink and water bottles, may further contribute to the reduction of the share of residual waste of the recycling process, which is an additional positive aspect. The collection and transport are well organised. The contamination rate strongly depends on the chosen collection system and the degree of communication between all chain partners.

In Europe only a few countries concentrate their collection programme on the whole range of consumer packaging, rigid or flexible. The majority of the countries have plastic bottles targeted for collection, all including or even concentrating on PET bottles. This implies that large quantities of PET bottles are available for recycling. The good chain co-operation, the well organised collection and transport infrastructure, the availability of sufficient recycling capacity, the high quality of RPET and available outlets, as well as the positive eco- rofile: all these aspect together make PET bottle recycling to one of the most successful examples of recycling of post-consumer household waste. As the profitability of PET recycling is inextricably bound up with the price of virgin PET and as that price-level is currently at a much lower level than a few years ago it can be concluded that a chain-deficit exists. Only when (part of) the collection costs are paid for by the municipalities combined with virgin prices at a level of around 900 euro per ton, the profitability of PET recycling might become sufficient to guarantee a stronger financial position for the PET recycling chain.

Theme (aspects)	Progress factors	Blocking factors
Economic	Recycling is "market pull" Subsidies will help to start recycling Ample supply of PET bales Collection is organised by municipalities that also pays for the collection costs Strong growth in PET applications for packaging resulting in more waste available for recycling Awarding of effective collection (consumers and municipalities)	The costs of the recycling scheme are relatively high: the resulting costs strongly depend on local regulations Low prices and fluctuations in prices of virgins and recyclates Export to low wage countries determines the price for recyclates. High costs for disposal of residues of plastic recycling residual waste from collection and/or sorting) Amount of administration before invoicing (Green Dot organisations) Bank guarantees; low R.O.I. Too high investments for current foreseen output Community taxes on waste disposal
Legal, governmental	National and EU directive for recycling of packaging waste (for example: long term strategy, aimed at 50 – 65% recovery) Standards for application of recyclates and definitions of waste (to guarantee consistent qualities and to improve the image of recyclates)	National “thinking” of governments instead of looking at PET recycling as an internationally oriented business activity Limitations in international (border crossing) transport Prohibition of application of recyclates in some products; food approval depends on state regulations and applied recycling process Rigid ‘legislation’ on definition of waste and on application of secondary materials (so that e.g. second choice off-spec is no longer considered as waste). Availability alternative disposal options like e.g. energy recovery
Social	Support by drinks and beverage industry; industrial awareness of necessity of PET-recycling (vertical chain integration); pro-active producers. International knowledge transfer from countries with successful PET recycling to countries with initiatives. Long-term contracts with e.g. Fost Plus · Much expertise (also from industry) available. Effective communication will result in stimulating public awareness of consumers and municipalities Open days in sorting centres · Information and communication about PET recycling to sorting centres Positive public opinion about collection and recycling	No direct contact between sorting centres and recyclers with regard to prices, specifications, quality control, etc. Public opinion: Plastics are burned! Public resistance, with question marks about ER plant and on acceptance of recycled products Non-homogenous participation of collectors
Organisational	Available capacity for PET recycling Collection by municipalities Existence of operational infrastructure No emissions by recycling process (water treatment integrated in recycling plant)	The municipalities mainly focus on their own responsibilities, paying less attention to the consequences for the rest of the chain. Inflexibility of e.g. sorting procedure/specification Stringent technical specifications for recyclates for reusing in bottle applications Availability of alternative disposal options Lack of official control on sorting centres Some producers do not comply with guidelines for design for recycling

Decisive Criteria	Recycling Scheme specific scores	Overall score
1 Economic 1.1 Price virgin plastics 1.2 Quantity 1.3 Number of disposers 1.4 Contamination level 1.5 Markets 1.6 Substitution threat 1.7 Recycling costs (incl. collection costs)	+ 0 - 0 0 0 0	0
2 Legal 2.1 Laws / directives 2.2 Governmental agreement 2.3 Trade obstacles 2.4 Application norms	+ + + 0	+
3 Social 3.1 Chain co-operation 3.2 Sector co-operation 3.3 Participation disposers 3.4 Society pressure 3.5 Successful recycling stories	0 - 0 0 0	-
4 Organisational 4.1 Disposal system 4.2 Take back logistics 4.3 Processing capacity 4.4 Certification secondary products	0 0 + +	0

Excerpt capitols from TNO - Report
1. European collection systems for recycling post consumer plastic waste	11
1.1 Introduction	11
1.2 Green Dot system	11
1.3 Covenant system (producers responsibility)	13
1.4 Other systems	14
1.5 Methods for collection	15
1.6 References	15
5. Appendix: Scheme Analysis PET bottles	45
5.1 Introduction	45
5.2 Description of the recycling scheme	45
5.3 Economic aspects	47
5.4 Legal, governmental aspects	48
5.5 Social aspects	48
5.6 Organisational aspects	49
5.7 Matrices progress/blocking factors and decisive criteria	49
5.8 Eco-profile considerations	49
5.9 Conclusions	50
5.10 References	50
Table A5.1 Progress / blocking factors for PET bottle recycling	51
Table A5.2 Decisive criteria and scores for recycling scheme PET bottles	52