NAPCOR: North American PET Collection Remains Above Global Benchmark

Despite unstable market conditions, NAPCOR reports that North America’s PET recycling ecosystem remains structurally sound.

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR) has issued its 2024 PET Recycling Report, marking three decades of annual analysis on PET bottle recovery and system performance across the United States and Canada.

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Despite unstable market conditions, NAPCOR reports that North America’s PET recycling ecosystem remains structurally sound. Collection rates continue to outperform global benchmarks, supported by increased non-mechanical reclamation and expanded capture of alternative feedstocks.

Key trends from the 2024 report include:

• Stable Collection Strength: The U.S. PET bottle recycling rate reached 30.2 percent, above the long-term average, while North America maintained a 39.2 percent rate—surpassing the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s 30 percent “effective recycling” threshold.
• Thermoform Recovery Surge: PET thermoform recovery jumped 52 percent year over year to 264 million pounds, offsetting a drop in bottle collections.
• Higher Processing Efficiency: Reclaimer output efficiency rose to 85.2 percent, supported by growth in non-traditional feedstocks and the first full-scale year of depolymerization technologies.
• Evolving rPET Markets: Domestic rPET sales dipped 3 percent as imports reached a record share of total supply, while average rPET content in U.S. bottles held at 15.9 percent.