rPET Packaging Guide
Recycled PET has to pass two separate tests, food law and physics, and only one of them is what an additive supplier sells against.
PET is the polymer of clear packaging: bottles, trays, cups, blister packs. It is also the polymer with the most developed recycling loop, which is why recycled PET, rPET, is the first material a brand owner reaches for when it has a recycled content target to meet. This page is about what governs that choice, and what limits it.
Two gates, not one
A converter putting recycled PET into food packaging has to pass two separate tests, and they are often confused.
The first is food safety. Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 governs recycled plastic intended to touch food. Recycled material may only be placed on the market if it was made with a suitable recycling technology listed in its Annex I, or with a novel technology developed under its Chapter IV, and where relevant the individual recycling process must hold an authorisation. That is a rule about the process that cleaned the material, not about the additive package or the converter.
The second is performance. Nothing in food law says the sheet has to hold its shape in the thermoformer or the bottle has to survive top load. That is the polymer's own business, and it is where recycled PET is weaker than virgin, because chains shorten every time the material is washed, dried and melted.
A material can be legal and still be unusable, or usable and still not legal. The additive business lives entirely inside the second question, which is why regulatory approval of a recycler says nothing about whether an additive is needed.
What the mandate asks for
From 2030, Regulation (EU) 2025/40 requires 30% recycled content in contact-sensitive PET packaging and 30% in single-use plastic beverage bottles, rising to 50% and 65% in 2040. Plastic packaging that is not contact-sensitive has a higher bar sooner: 35% in 2030 and 65% in 2040. The percentages are averages per manufacturing plant and per year, and they count post-consumer material collected in the Union or under equivalent standards.
The supply is not evenly there. The EU recycled 67.5% of all packaging waste in 2023, but plastic packaging sat well below its own 55% target in most member states, from 23.0% in Hungary to 59.5% in Belgium. Food-grade material is a subset of that again, since it has to come through an authorised process.
Where the performance limit bites
Recycled PET arrives with shorter chains than virgin resin. Hydrolysis during washing, oxidation during drying and extrusion, and contamination from other polymers and adhesives all contribute. The consequences differ by format:
- Sheet for thermoforming sags in the oven and draws unevenly, which is a separate guide.
- Bottles lose top load and stress crack resistance, which shows up as failures in transport rather than on the line.
- Fibers and strapping need consistent melt behaviour along the whole filament, so variability in the feed is as damaging as the average.
What Nexam Chemical sells here
The company's PET offering is two grades of reactive masterbatch: NEXAMITE M021200 for sheets, films, thermoformed packaging and staple fibers, and NEXAMITE M992000, a linear grade for continuous filaments, fibers and strapping. It describes them as rebuilding polymer structure in line, and states that M021200 is epoxy-free and approved for food contact by EFSA and FDA.
Take that last claim carefully. No opinion number or authorisation number is given for it, the company's own application pages say "compliant" rather than "approved", and under Regulation 2022/1616 it is recycling processes that are authorised, not additives. We report the claim and its source, and we have not confirmed it with a regulator.
What we left out
The previous version of this page gave intrinsic viscosity values for virgin and recycled PET, a loss per extrusion pass, and dosage ranges. We could not find a document behind any of them, so they are not here. The sourcing rule on this site applies to a helpful number as much as to an unhelpful one.
Sources
- Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 on recycled plastic materials intended to come into contact with foods, Articles 3 and 4 and Annex I.
- Regulation (EU) 2025/40, Article 7.
- Eurostat, packaging waste statistics, 2023 data.
- Nexam Chemical, IV enhancer for PET and rPET.
Independent research, not affiliated with Nexam Chemical and not investment advice.