Waste PET and rPET brokerage

Intrinsic viscosity is the number that decides the application. It tracks molecular weight, and PET loses it every time it goes through heat, so a flake that has been through one life too many will not blow into a bottle no matter how clean it looks.

Sell the analysis, not the adjective. Words like clean, washed and food-grade mean different things to every party in this chain, and a buyer who has been disappointed once will not move on adjectives again. An IV figure, a PVC figure and a photograph of the bale get further in one message than a page of description.

PPWR gets the attention, but the Single-Use Plastics Directive (EU) 2019/904 is already in force and it is the one that built the collection system PPWR now relies on.

Read the collection targets as a supply forecast, because that is what they are. A jump from 77 % to 90 % collection is a large increase in the volume of bottle material entering the market before 2029, at the same time as PPWR raises the demand for post-consumer recyclate. Supply and demand are both being legislated upward on overlapping timetables, and the two do not move at the same speed.

Note also that SUPD and PPWR count differently in places. SUPD sets a recycled content target for bottles; PPWR sets targets by packaging category and counts only post-consumer material. Where both apply, comply with the stricter reading and say which one you are quoting.

There is no single world UCO specification. The traded grades differ by region, and the difference is not cosmetic: a cargo that is perfectly ordinary on one basis is off-spec on another. This is the single most common reason a first-time seller and a first-time buyer talk past each other.

Read the FFA line again. A US Gulf Coast basis tolerates three times the free fatty acid of a European one. Material bought on the loose basis and offered on the tight one is not a bargain, it is a claim waiting to happen, and the person holding it when the analysis lands is usually the one who did not check which basis they were quoting.

Beyond the traded parameters, a hydrotreater will want phosphorus, metals, chlorides and polyethylene content before it commits, because those govern catalyst life rather than product quality. A FAME plant cares far less. Same cargo, different questions, and it is worth knowing which buyer you are talking to before you send an analysis that answers the wrong ones.

Recycled PET is one of the few commodities in this sector where the demand curve is written into law, and the dates are close enough now that converters are contracting rather than watching.

• PPWR, Regulation (EU) 2025/40. In force since 11 February 2025 and applying from 12 August 2026. From 1 January 2030 it sets minimum post-consumer recycled content: 30 % for contact-sensitive PET packaging, 10 % for contact-sensitive plastic packaging other than PET, 30 % for single-use plastic beverage bottles, and 35 % for other plastic packaging. Targets step up again from 2040, with single-use plastic beverage bottles rising to 65 %.
• Single-Use Plastics Directive. Already requires 25 % recycled content in PET beverage bottles from 2025, rising to 30 % for all plastic beverage bottles from 2030.
• Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 governs recycled plastics intended for food contact. A recycling process must be authorised, and the authorisation attaches to the process, not to the company. This is the first thing to verify when food-grade rPET is offered.

• Post-consumer PET bottle bales: clear/natural, light blue, mixed and green; kerbside and deposit-return origin.
• Hot-washed PET flake: food-grade and non-food-grade, colour-sorted.
• rPET pellets and granulate: including food-grade material from authorised processes.
• PET production arisings: off-grade resin, preform and sheet rejects, purge and lump, edge trim.
• PET trays and thermoformed fractions: a growing and genuinely difficult stream, priced separately from bottle material.

We act for waste management companies and sorting facilities placing bales, and for recyclers, preform producers and packaging converters who need contracted volume to hit a recycled-content number they cannot miss.

The two things that decide whether an offer moves are a current analysis and a representative sample. On bales that means IV, PVC in ppm, moisture and a colour breakdown; on flake and pellet it means a full certificate of analysis and, for food-grade, the authorisation reference for the recycling process. With that in hand a serious buyer will price within days. Without it, an offer circulates for weeks and quietly dies.

Export routing also changed in 2026, see waste plastics for the Waste Shipment Regulation dates, which apply to PET as much as to polyolefins.