Recycled PET (rPET) from PET Recycling Team (PRT, Wöllersdorf / Austria; www.petrecyclingteam.com), a subsidiary of Austrian plastics packaging manufacturer Alpla Werke Alwin Lehner (Hard; www.alpla.com), results in 79% less CO₂ emissions compared to virgin material. This result, a greater advantage than previously thought, comes from a study that Alpla commissioned to Denkstatt (Vienna / Austria; www.denkstatt.at). PRT's PET recyclate has a carbon footprint of 0.45 kg CO₂ equivalent per kg of rPET. In contrast, virgin PET produces 2.15 kg CO₂ equivalent per kg.

Greenhouse emissions were calculated in accordance with the life cycle assessment standard ISO 14044, from the collection and sorting of used PET bottles, to transportation to the recycling plant in Wöllersdorf, through to the washing, processing and granulating. The analysis is based on the mass and energy balance (electricity and gas consumption) of the Wöllersdorf recycling plant in 2016.

Packaging manufacturer Alpla has been active in PET recycling for more than 20 years. Even if the underlying economic conditions for plastics recycling were difficult, said the company, it would still stick to this cornerstone of its sustainability strategy. Alpla currently has recycling firms at three locations: PRT in Wöllersdorf, which was founded in 2005 and the majority stake acquired in 2010, a joint venture in Mexico and the recycling plant PET Radomsko in Poland that was built in 2013. The total annual capacity of these three plants is around 65,000 t of food-grade rPET, of which 35,000 t is produced in Austria.

According to site manager Peter Fröschel, around 50 people are employed at the Wöllersdorf plant, and another 75 at the Polish subsidiary. The main customers for the recycled PET materials are Alpla's plants in southeastern Europe, but the company also has customers in Germany and the UK. It produces high-grade PET regrind material for the preform and films industries, and also supplies polyolefin flakes to films and fibres manufacturers.