The evaluation committee of European trade association PET Containers Recycling Europe (Petcore, Brussels / Belgium; www.petcore.org) has determined that neither the Sidel “Actis Lite” coating technology for gas barrier enhancement nor the ColorMatrix “Triple A” acetaldehyde scavenger technology will have any negative impact on European PET recycling at present. The committee´s job is to asses the impact of new PET containers and additives on the quality of the recovered PET flake for recycling.

“The Actis Lite coating will be removed with a high degree of success during the bottle washing process. What is more, we estimate that coated bottles will not reach a 12.5% market penetration, which is the point beyond which we might see a change in flake quality,” said Karl Schöpf, Petcore´s technical director and chairman of the evaluation committee. He added that the ColorMatrix technology is in line with the colour specifications required for bottles.

In Schöpf´s view, the use of coated bottles is unlikely to grow to a point where it might become an issue for recycling, as their use will be restricted to some carbonated beverages. Still waters represent a much larger proportion of the PET packaging market for beverages in Europe.

“Bales of collected post-consumer PET are and will continue to be primarily made up of non-coated bottles. Flakes from bales that include coated bottles will therefore remain of a quality fully suitable for any of the recovered PET end-applications: bottle-to-bottle, fibres, sheet and strapping,” Schöpf said.