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Two offers of food-grade rPET at the same price can describe materially different risk. What separates them is rarely the recycler’s process and almost always the stream that feeds it. Bottle PET from a deposit system, bottle PET from kerbside collection and thermoformed tray PET behave differently in a decontamination line and end up in different places on the price curve. Two quotations can therefore look identical on the specification sheet and still carry different odds of a food-contact claim holding up.
Why the collection stream sets the grade
Food-contact recycling depends on knowing the history of the input. A decontamination process is validated against an assumed level and type of contamination, which means the more predictable the input, the more defensible the output.
A deposit return system delivers close to the ideal case. Containers arrive whole, largely uncontaminated, from a defined product category, and the system knows what it accepted. Kerbside collection delivers the same polymer with far more variation: mixed with other packaging, sometimes with residues, and with a share of items the sorter has to remove. Both can produce food-grade material. They do not produce it at the same yield or with the same documentation burden.
Our comparison of deposit systems in Scandinavia and Poland sets out how differently two schemes can perform on stream quality, and the first six months of the Polish system show what a new scheme does to the material that used to reach municipal sorting.
Trays are the complication nobody mentions in the quotation
PET is not one material commercially. Bottle PET and thermoformed tray PET differ in intrinsic viscosity, and trays frequently carry multilayer structures, absorbing pads, sleeves and adhesives that bottles do not.
A share of tray material in a bottle stream shows up as processing trouble rather than as a line on a specification: variation in melt behaviour, more filtration, more yield loss. This is why “rPET” on its own is an incomplete description, and why the useful question to a supplier is not what polymer it is but what the input consisted of.
What this does to the price
At the end of June 2026, rPET flakes were assessed at 1,331 to 1,341 euros per tonne and rPET pellets at 1,718 to 1,728 euros per tonne, delivered duty paid to Northwest Europe. The gap of close to 390 euros is the cost of turning a washed flake into a material that a converter can run and a food safety assessment can stand behind.
Read that spread as a make-or-buy question rather than as a discount. Flakes are cheaper only for a buyer with the extrusion capacity, the decontamination step and the approvals to complete the work. Without those, buying flakes moves cost rather than removing it, and moves the compliance burden along with it.
Demand for this grade is also narrower than the regulatory headlines suggest. PET beverage bottles have had to contain at least 25% recycled plastic since 2025, but that obligation is measured as a national average, so it does not put a number on any individual filler. The obligation that reaches individual sites arrives on 1 January 2030 under the packaging regulation: 30% recycled content in contact-sensitive packaging with PET as its main component, averaged per manufacturing site and calendar year, rising to 50% on 1 January 2040.
Four questions for the supplier
- Which streams feed the line? Deposit, kerbside, commercial, or a blend, and in what proportion.
- Bottle only, or bottle and tray? If both, what share, and how the difference in intrinsic viscosity is managed.
- What does the food-contact authorisation cover? The process, the input specification and the intended use, rather than the bare fact that an authorisation exists.
- What changes if the stream changes? Deposit schemes are still being introduced and expanded across Europe, and each one moves material away from whatever collected it before.
The certification landscape behind the third question is set out in our buyer’s guide to food-grade rPET certifications. For the wider sourcing picture across polymers, start from our post-consumer recyclate overview.
Frequently asked questions
Why is rPET from a deposit system considered better?
Because the input is more predictable. Containers arrive whole, largely uncontaminated and from a defined product category, which makes a decontamination process easier to validate and defend.
Can kerbside-collected PET be used for food contact?
Yes, but with more sorting effort, more yield loss and a heavier documentation burden than a deposit stream, because the input is more variable.
Why do PET trays cause problems in a bottle stream?
Tray PET differs from bottle PET in intrinsic viscosity and often carries multilayer structures, pads, sleeves and adhesives. In a bottle line that shows up as melt variation, extra filtration and yield loss.
What is the price difference between rPET flakes and pellets?
At the end of June 2026, flakes were assessed at 1,331 to 1,341 euros per tonne and pellets at 1,718 to 1,728, delivered duty paid to Northwest Europe, a gap of close to 390 euros.
When does an individual site have to meet a recycled content target?
From 1 January 2030 under the packaging regulation, at 30% for contact-sensitive packaging with PET as its main component, averaged per manufacturing site per calendar year and rising to 50% on 1 January 2040.