The National Association for PET Container Resources: Focusing on the Future

A major part of our current activities is to increase the recycling and collection rate for PET bottles and containers.

SEATTLE (Waste Advantage): The National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR) is a North American organization that was formed in 1987. During that time 2-liter bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) were just becoming more popular and the organization grew as a result of trying to get those PET bottles into the recycling bin, recycled and developing end markets for it. Today, we represent the entire PET industry, including resin suppliers, PET reclaimers, bottle and thermoform converters, equipment suppliers and other suppliers to the industry from the U.S., Canada and Mexico. NAPCOR’s goals are to protect and promote the PET package, and to communicate its environmental sustainability attributes. Many do not realize that PET can be recovered over and over again into many different end product applications, and right now we need a lot more of it!

We have increased the scope of the recycled rate report in the last two years quite significantly and we now have sections on the total supply chain into the PET industry and RPET industry overall. In 2019, we conducted a survey of the textile fiber industry and measured the volumes of RPET that were going into fibers by capacity. With the 2020 report published later this year, we plan to build out more insight related to PET thermoforms. While the report is invaluable for our members, it is also becoming more critical to outside parties that are interested in the PET and RPET markets.

In the 2019 report, we calculated a North American PET recovery number, which was the first of its kind. What was particularly important this year was that the Ellen McArthur Foundation came out in November 2020 with a standard covering their new plastics economy. Their wording is that the suggested thresholds to prove recycling or composting works in practice and scale are 30 percent recycling/composting rate achieved across multiple regions collectively representing at least 400 million inhabitants. Well, that fell right into the population for North America and taking the three countries together, we see a recycle rate of 35 percent. The big disappointment is that the U.S. rate is so low.

A major part of our current activities is to increase the recycling and collection rate for PET bottles and containers. Several states have proposed legislation of post-consumer content mandates of 25 to 50 percent, and the national Break Free from Plastics bill is calling for 80 percent in 2040. At our current rate, we would struggle on a national basis to get 25 percent RPET content because the collection rate is not there yet. Adding to the RPET demand requirements for bottles are end uses in textile fibers, thermoforms and strapping. Assuming these remain constant at 2019 levels, we will not have enough bottles in the recycling system to meet demand. The one system we see that delivers higher collection rates is the bottle deposit system. However, it would take legislation to implement it. Right now, there are a number of states discussing it, as well as at the federal level, but the logistics are very considerable. 

Courtesy: www.wasteadvantagemag.com

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