A used polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle does not become new material on its own. Between the bin and a fresh batch of resin lies a sequence of stages, each preparing the material for the next. The seven steps below follow the whole process, from collection to the checks required before recycled material can be used for food and drink packaging.
If you would rather begin with the material itself, what PET is and why it suits drinking-water bottles covers that ground.
Seven steps from used bottle to recycled resin
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Collection of post-consumer bottles Used bottles are gathered from consumers, collection points, retailers, waste-sorting centres, and public and private waste-management systems. PET that consumers have already used in this way is known as post-consumer PET.
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Sorting PET bottles are separated from other plastics, metal, glass, paper and contaminants. The step matters because any other plastic or contaminant left in the stream can lower the quality of the recycled material.
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Removal of labels, caps and foreign materials According to Indorama Ventures, the bottles are compressed into bales and sent to a recycling plant, where they are stripped of labels and caps and cleared of impurities such as iron, sand and other plastics.
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Washing The bottles are washed to remove dirt, drink residue, label adhesive and other contaminants. How thoroughly this is done bears directly on the quality of the flakes and resin produced later.
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Shredding into PET flakes Once washed, the bottles are shredded into small pieces of plastic known as PET flakes. TOMRA lists fibres among the uses for these flakes, and they can also go on to be melted down and made into recycled resin.
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Melting into recycled resin According to Indorama Ventures, the flakes are then melted to become recycled resin. That resin is rPET, or recycled PET: the raw material from which new products are made.
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Quality control and certification Because rPET for food and drink packaging is in direct contact with its contents, it is held to stricter controls than recycled material for general use. The US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) reviews case by case whether a recycling process produces plastic pure enough for food contact, and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) assesses the safety of each recycling process.
What recycled PET becomes
What post-consumer PET can be turned into depends on the quality of the raw material and the standard of the recycling process. The possibilities include:
- PET flakes, used as raw material for further processing
- rPET resin, ready for the manufacture of new products
- new bottles and other food and drink packaging, where the rPET is food-grade and meets the relevant requirements
- polyester fibres
- plastic sheets and other plastic packaging
- a range of other industrial products
Indorama Ventures notes that recycled resin can be processed into polyester fibres. For bottles the bar is higher: TOMRA points out that rPET used to make drink bottles must meet food-grade standards.
A shared responsibility
Recycling works well only when every party plays its part: packaging manufacturers, the designers of labels and caps, consumers, waste collectors, recycling plants and regulators. Choosing PET, and supporting a recycling system that handles it properly, is part of using resources responsibly.
What rPET is and how it differs from virgin PET picks up where this article ends, and explains where the resin for P.A.S. Intergroup’s rPET bottles comes from.
Sources
- Indorama Ventures. (n.d.). Recycled Products.
- TOMRA. (2025, 15 May). What is rPET plastic?.
- US Food and Drug Administration. (2020). Recycled Plastics in Food Packaging.
- European Food Safety Authority. (n.d.). Recycled plastic materials.