Design Guidelines

The objective of the Design for Recycling Guidelines for PET trays is to encourage packaging designers, converters and users to integrate certain criteria during the development phase of a new product in order to facilitate PET trays recycling. The decisions that are made early in the design process can ultimately affect the potential to recycle PET trays back into trays. Then again, the ease with which you can separate and recycle PET trays can be compromised by many factors including the choice of tray colour, barrier systems, use of additives, lids composition and labels.

The Design for Recycling Guidelines for PET trays are based on the requirements for mechanical recycling of post-consumer PET trays into applications that require best recyclate quality. Mechanical recycling is the re-melting and transformation of waste materials into new recycled products without changing the basic chemical structure of the processed material.

The key principles of the Design for Recycling Guidelines are appropriate for all PET trays. These include:

• Avoid the use of materials and/or components that are known to impede the PET recycling process or reduce the quality of the recycled PET.
• Reduce the amount of non-PET components to allow for ease of separation and efficiency of recycling.
• Design components, such as lids and labels, must can easily, safely, cost-effectively and rapidly be separated and removed from the recycled PET.
• The goal of improving the recyclability of PET trays cannot compromise product safety.

This webpage provides guidance on numerous elements of PET tray design that have the ability to impede the PET recycling process or reduce the quality of the recycled PET. The summary table provides a snapshot on how to prevent contamination of the PET tray stream. 

Classification

Materials and/or components used in PET trays are classified under one of the following categories:

• Full compatibility – Materials that according to the TCEP testing protocol demonstrate no negative impact on the current European PET recycling process (also known as category “YES”). The use of these materials and/or components are encouraged to ensure that PET trays are highly recyclable. This category also contains some materials and/or components in PET trays which have not been tested (yet), but are known to be acceptable in PET recycling.
   
• Limited compatibility – Materials that according to the TCEP testing protocol demonstrate limited impact on the current European PET recycling process (also known as category “CONDITIONAL”). When a use is conditional, it has the ability to negatively impact the PET recycling stream, but these effects are not detrimental if certain conditions are met. For instance, the use of a material and/or component can be limited to a certain weight percent of a particular bottle design in relation to the total PET market. The specific conditions of these materials can be found on our website. This category also contains some materials and/or components in PET trays which have not been tested (yet), but which our experts believe pose a low risk of interfering with the PET recycling processes or contaminating the recycled PET.
   
• Low compatibility – Materials that according to the TCEP testing protocol demonstrate a negative impact on the current European PET recycling process (also known as category “NO”). The use of these materials and/or components needs to be restricted because of their detrimental effect on the quality of recycled PET or interference with current PET recycling processes. This category also contains some materials and/or components in PET trays which have not been tested (yet), but which our experts believe pose a high risk of interfering with the PET recycling processes or contaminating the recycled PET.

Products

It is important to note that the production of food contact grade rPET has the potential to a provide a high value market. It requires a consistent  PET tray collection stream due to the problems associated with achieving a consistent colour in the end use application. Markets for coloured rPET are often limited to coloured end-use applications such as strapping or fibers. As a result, colourless PET attracts higher sales prices compared to the darker coloured PET streams.

Click here to view the product data.