Established in June 2022, the Coalition awards grants to materials recovery facilities (MRFs), secondary sorters, and reclaimers to increase acceptance, improve capture, and deliver higher-quality recycled PET to responsible end markets. In just two years, the Coalition has brought together key constituents to address the biggest barriers to the recyclability and circularity of PET. Together, its members have helped deploy over $5 million in grant funding, resulting in the capture of 29 million new pounds of recycled PET per year.
Since it was first recycled in 1970, PET has faced many challenges to achieving circularity due to the small number of households with curbside or drop-off sites where PET is collected, certain PET materials such as non-bottle PET not being widely accepted in MRFs, or lack of proper MRF sortation of PET to ensure end markets can purchase high-quality material. The Coalition’s grants address these barriers by enabling MRF facility upgrades, improved sortation capabilities, and community engagement needed to boost recycling rates of residential PET, non-bottle PET, and pigmented and opaque PET. The PET Recycling Coalition aims to capture an additional 250 million pounds of new PET recycled each year by the end of 2027 and achieve an acceptance rate of 60%+ for non-bottle PET by the end of 2025.
“The Coalition’s first annual report demonstrates how collective action is making it possible for more PET to be recycled and transformed into future packaging,” said Brittany LaValley, Vice President of Materials Advancement. “We have much to celebrate and much to strive for to increase the circularity of PET as we continue to connect the right people, ideas, funding, and solutions.”
