PET Bottle Bales & Hot-Washed Flakes

Post-consumer PET bottle bales and hot-washed clear, light-blue and green flakes, bought on ppm and IV

PET bottle recycling starts with two traded forms, and both are waste at the border. Bottle bales are sorted, pressed post-consumer bottles. Hot-washed flakes are those bottles ground, washed with caustic and detergent, sink-float separated from caps and labels, and dried. Both are declared as plastic waste and scrap under HS 3915.90, and both fall under the Basel Convention plastic waste entries: since 1 January 2021 clean, sorted PET is Annex IX entry B3011, the non-hazardous plastic waste entry, while contaminated or mixed plastic waste is Y48 or, where hazardous, A3210, and those two need the prior informed consent procedure. A typical hot-washed clear flake specification quoted by recyclers reads PVC below 30 ppm, glue below 20 ppm, metals below 10 ppm, moisture below 0.5% and IV of 0.70 to 0.72 dL/g. Flake-fed bottle-to-bottle lines look for IV of 0.72 dL/g or more, low PVC and a tight colour split, because their SSP stage raises IV but cannot remove PVC or colour. Bales are graded on the clear and light-blue split, PVC bottle content, moisture and press density. The 2024 export declarations under HS 3915.90, the residual plastic waste line that carries PET and PP scrap, total USD 1.68 billion across 124 reporters, led by Japan at USD 190 million, the USA at USD 134 million, the Netherlands at USD 115 million, Germany at USD 110 million, the UK at USD 90 million and Thailand at USD 84 million. Those are declared export values, not offers. Extruded pellets are a different product with a different customs code, and this site covers them on two separate pages: food-grade rPET pellets from authorised bottle-to-bottle processes at /commodities/recycled-plastics/food-grade-rpet-pellets, and textile-derived and low-IV rPET chip for fibre and glycolysis at /commodities/recycled-plastics/textile-and-low-iv-rpet-chip.

The buyer is a flake-fed bottle-to-bottle recycler, a sheet and thermoforming plant, a strapping maker or a polyester staple fibre and filament spinner, and the offer is a price per MT for a stated form, colour split, IV and contamination limit. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers PET bottle bales and hot-washed flakes from recyclers in the EU, the UK, the USA, Japan, Thailand and the UAE, against the recycler's certificate of analysis per lot, photographs of the material, a certificate of origin and the waste shipment documents the route requires. Bales and flakes from the EU follow Regulation (EU) 2024/1157 on shipments of waste, which bans non-hazardous plastic waste exports to non-OECD countries from 21 November 2026; Annex VII accompanies green-listed shipments within the rules, and consent is needed for notified waste. Destination rules decide the rest: Malaysia admits plastic waste only with SIRIM approval and pre-shipment inspection by a SIRIM-approved body; Thailand banned municipal plastic waste imports from 1 January 2025; Indonesia admits industrial non-hazardous plastic scrap under Ministry of Trade Regulations 84/2019 and 58/2020 only to licensed manufacturing recyclers holding an active API-P permit and approved quota, with origin pre-shipment stuffing inspection and a Laporan Surveyor issued through KSO SCISI (Sucofindo, Surveyor Indonesia, SGS), into Tanjung Perak and Tanjung Priok; India permits PET flake imports only with DGFT authorisation and an environment ministry NOC; and Viet Nam allows plastic scrap only to its own registered users under QCVN 32 with an environmental deposit. Bales and big-bag flakes move in 40-ft containers on FOB, CFR and CIF terms; for bottle bales the target payload is 22.0 to 24.5 MT per 40-ft high cube at a press density of 380 kg/m³ or more, and minimum lots are confirmed per product and pack. Send the form, colour split, IV, contamination limits, monthly volume and discharge port and the enquiry is screened and worked against it.

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Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.