Intop joined the formulation of recyclable design guidelines for PET container

In March 2022, Intop Holding, as the second participating unit, participated in the formulation of the CSRA group standards “Recyclable Design Guidelines for Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Containers and Packaging Products”, “Recyclable Design Guidelines for High Density Polyethylene(HDPE) Containers and Packaging Products”, and participated in the online conference as a reviewer of the recyclable design evaluation project.

The release of the two guidelines means that China has taken another leap forward in tackling plastic pollution and preventing plastic waste from leaking into the environment. The recyclable design guidelines for plastic packaging products will start from the source design, which will play a direct guiding role in the recyclability of plastic products, promote the recycling economy of plastics, and help China achieve the goal of "dual carbon".

Unlabeled beverage bottles for overseas markets

At the press conference, Mr. Gary Lau, President of Intop Holding, shared his views on the recyclable design guidelines for PET container packaging products and the recycling of PET plastics. The full text of the speech is as follows:

Hello everyone! I am Gary, President of Intop Holding.

As a representative of plastic recycling enterprises, I am honored to participate in the formulation of the design guidelines for PET containers and packaging.

Today, I am very pleased to take this opportunity to share with you some of my views on the recyclable design guidelines for PET container packaging products and the recycling of PET plastics.

In the "14th Five-Year" plastic pollution control action plan, it is proposed to "encourage the use of plastic waste at the same level and high value-added utilization", and the high-quality recycling of PET bottles has always been the focus and hot topic of the industry. From PET bottles to PET bottles is the ultimate goal that Intop has been working hard for!

The traditional recycling of PET bottles is mainly used for production of recycled polyester staple fiber. The technology in this area is very mature, because the relevant parameters for PET bottle flakes are not so high, and most recycling and cleaning companies and even small workshops can achieve it. But this is the downgraded utilization of PET recycling, and its life cycle may end after being reused once. To some extent, it is a waste of resources.

Higher-level recycling of recycled PET bottles can also be used to produce recycled POY, DTY, and then processed into fabrics, shoes and clothing; or RPET sheets, made into electronic and fruit packaging blisters; and PET bottle blowing (of course, Since the domestic policy has not yet been released, it can only be processed into daily chemical packaging bottles at most)

Through the joint efforts of people in the PET bottle recycling industry chain, we continuously optimize the recycling system, improve production and processing equipment, and optimize the process flow, so that the purity and cleanliness of the rPET bottle flakes we produced are higher and more stable. However, if the PET bottle container packaging design at the source can start to consider the feasibility and convenience of subsequent recycling, such as optimizing packaging design, reducing the use of PVC materials, reducing the use of metal springs, reducing the use of adhesives, and reducing the use of unconventional miscellaneous colored bottles such as brown and fluorescent colors will reduce the difficulty of recycling and processing, promote further improvement of the recovery rate and reduce the cost of recycling, and at the same time, the purity of the recycled and processed materials will be higher, and the high-quality reuse of PET bottles will be realized.

The level of recycling and reuse of PET bottles depends on the purity and cleanliness of the PET bottle flakes after cleaning and crushing. The main indicators involved include PVC content, polyolefin content, other impurity content, and uncolored bottle flake content and so on. The units of these indicators are all measured in PPM. For example, for our AAA grade rPET bottle flakes, the PVC content is required to be controlled within 10ppm, and the polyolefin content is within 30ppm.However, the difference between recycled PET bottles is very large. Different brands, different colors, different material labels, different degrees of adhesiveness, different degrees of cleanliness, as well as other mixed materials such as other plastics, metals, etc., which make our cleaning process more difficult. After more than 10 years of continuous hard work, we have found that the quality of the bottle source is very important to ensure the stability of the bottle flake quality, which is why Intop insists on building our recycling system at the source.

          It is expected that colleagues in the virgin and recycled PET industry chain will participate together, optimize from the source design, and work together for the recycling of PET container packaging products!