PET Bottle Flakes & rPET Pellets (Hot-Washed Clear Flakes, Bottle Bales, Food-Contact rPET)

Hot-washed clear PET bottle flakes, post-consumer bottle bales and rPET pellets, bought on IV and ppm

PET recycling trades in three forms, and each has a different legal status at the border. Bottle bales are sorted, pressed post-consumer bottles and are plastic waste under the Basel Convention: since 1 January 2021 clean, sorted PET has been listed in Annex IX as B3011, the non-hazardous plastic waste entry, while contaminated or mixed plastic waste falls under Y48 or, where hazardous, A3210, and both of those need the prior informed consent procedure. Hot-washed flakes are the bottles ground, washed, floated and dried, and they are still declared as plastic waste and scrap under HS 3915.90, so they sit under the same waste import rules as bales in most destinations. Extruded, filtered rPET pellets are a polymer in primary form under HS 3907.61 (viscosity number 78 ml/g or higher) or 3907.69, and several importing countries treat them as a raw material rather than waste - China, which has banned solid waste imports since 1 January 2021, set the GB/T 40006 recycled plastics standards covering recycled pellets and PET bottle flakes, and the importer confirms which form clears. 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, and bottle-to-bottle buyers look for IV of 0.72 dL/g or more. UN Comtrade 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.

The buyer is a polyester staple fibre and filament spinner, a strapping, sheet and thermoforming plant, or a bottle-grade rPET maker, and the offer is a price per MT for a stated form, colour, IV and contamination limit. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers PET bottle bales, flakes and rPET pellets from recyclers in the EU, the UK, the USA, Japan and Thailand, 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. Food-contact rPET is sold on the recycling process, not the pellet alone: in the EU, Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 requires an authorised recycling process with an EFSA opinion on its safety, and in the USA the FDA lists recycling processes for which it has issued a no objection letter. Flakes and bales from the EU follow Regulation (EU) 2024/1157, 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 has banned plastic waste imports since 1 January 2025, Indonesia since 2025, India permits PET flake imports only with DGFT authorisation and an environment ministry NOC, and Viet Nam allows plastic scrap only to its own users under QCVN 32 with an environmental deposit. Bales and big-bag flakes move in 40-ft containers on FOB, CFR and CIF terms; minimum lots are confirmed per product and pack. Send the form, colour, IV, contamination limits, monthly volume and discharge port and the enquiry is screened and worked against it.

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.