The PET Recycling Company (Pty) Ltd T/A PETCO
PO Box 77
Muizenberg
Western Cape
South Africa
7950
Tel: 0860 1 is PET (0860 147 738)
Cellphone: 0860 147 738 ( Toll Free )
Fax: 021 7941724
Email: info@petco.co.za
Website: www.petco.co.za
Contact: Cheri Scholtz-Chief Executive Officer
An industry driven and financed environmental solution for PET.
PETCO is the trading name of the PET Recycling Company (Pty) Ltd, and represents the South African PET plastic industry’s joint effort to self-regulate post-consumer polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling.
PETCO is financed by a voluntary recycling levy paid by converters on PET resin purchased, and the company also receives grants from brand owners and resin producers. Support for PET recycling ensures a real monetary value for post-consumer PET. This in turn sustains collection interest, and also reduces the volume of post-consumer PET in the waste stream.
Ongoing consumer and public education and awareness activities promote environmental responsibility, and encourage PET recycling. By taking responsibility for post-consumer PET recycling, PETCO imposes accountability over the entire life cycle of PET products and packaging. This means that those companies manufacturing, importing and/or selling PET products and packaging are financially and physically responsible for such products after their useful life. In the case of post-consumer PET, this responsibility has been delegated to a third party, namely PETCO, who fulfils the PET industry’s role of extended producer responsibility (EPR). EPR promotes the integration of environmental costs associated with PET products throughout their life cycle into the market costs of the products, and shifts responsibility for the used container from government to private industry.
So what is PET?
PET is the building block of the common polyester chain. Its everyday name depends on whether it is being used as polyester staple fibre for textile and other end uses or as material for rigid packaging, the latter being known commonly as PET. PET is labelled with the # 1 resin identification code and is used in beverage bottles for bottled water, carbonated soft drinks, milk, juice, sports and energy drinks, bottles, jars, punnets, tubs and trays for food items, bottles for household, personal care and pharmaceutical products, sheet and film for packaging.
PET is technically 100% recyclable. Once recycled, from either pre-consumer (such as factory off cuts) or post-consumer waste, (after it’s been used by a consumer), it is called rPET or Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate.
What are PET bottles recycled into?
In South Africa, post-consumer PET bottles collected and are recycled into 3 end-use products for the local and export market.
- Bottle2Fibre- The largest end-use market for post-consumer PET bottles in South Africa is currently the polyester staple fibre market which is close to saturation.
- Bottle2Foodgrade - rPET is blended with virgin material for the production of new PET containers for both food and non-food products, (bottles, sheet and film applications).
- Bottle2Bottle - Capacity is currently being installed for expansion into carbonated soft drink grade approved Bottle2Bottle resin. This and B2Foodgrade represent the most sustainable use of raw material by “closing the loop” where the resin can be used again and again.
Industry in South Africa is on track towards recycling 70% of post- consumer beverage PET by 2022, however meeting these targets will be a growing challenge. thus PETCO supports initiatives and activities that do not necessarily increase the collection volumes of recycled PET, but contribute to the visible recycling of PET. This is done through PET infrastructure and equipment provision, collector training and development, education and awareness, special projects and joint ventures, building the recycling network and fostering government partnerships
Many of these activities are conducted as part of PETCO’s contractual relationship with Plastics|SA’s Sustainability Council, as well as joint venture projects with RAG members such as:
- Collect-a-Can
- The Glass Recycling Company (TGRC)
- Hulamin Limited, the Paper Manufacturers Association of SA (PAMSA)
- the Paper Recycling Association of SA (PRASA) that includes Tetra Pak SA (Pty) Ltd
- Printing SA (PIFSA), the Polyolefin Recycling Company (POLYCO)
- PETCO, Plastics South Africa (Plastics|SA)
- the South African Plastics Recyclers Organisation (SAPRO)
- the South African Vinyls Association (SAVA) and
- the Polystyrene Packaging Council (PSPC).
Others include joint projects with shareholder members such as ABI, Coca-Cola SA, Coca–Cola Shanduka, Penbev and Nampak and others.
