BEYOND 
RECYCLING

The progress made in PET recycling over the past decade has been significant. Enhanced sorting, washing, and decontamination have substantially raised the baseline quality of food-grade recycled PET (rPET). However, a fundamental challenge remains embedded within the material itself. 

Every time PET is thermally processed, the polymer chains are exposed to thermo-oxidative stress. This degradation is cumulative. With each recycling cycle, more degradation takes place, more colored side products are formed, haze increases and overall appearance declines.

This whitepaper looks at the mechanics of thermo-oxidative degradation in PET and explores how stabilization technology can intervene during processing, before color shift and molecular breakdown occur.