Textile-Derived & Low-IV rPET Chip (Dark, Coloured and Fibre-Grade Pellet)

rPET chip from post-consumer polyester textiles and coloured bottle streams, sold on IV, colour, water content and GRS or RCS certificate

Not every rPET pellet is a bottle pellet. Two other streams are extruded into chip and traded on their own terms. The first is textile-derived chip: post-consumer polyester textiles such as uniforms, workwear, table linen, banners and sublimated sportswear, sorted to 100% polyester, shredded, melt-filtered and pelletised. The second is chip from coloured and mixed bottle flake that food-grade lines reject on colour. Both come out with a lower intrinsic viscosity than bottle grade, because the polyester has already been through one or more melt cycles and, in textiles, years of washing. Textile-derived chip typically sits at about 0.50 to 0.58 dL/g, coloured bottle chip a little higher, while bottle grade is 0.72 dL/g and above and strapping needs 0.80 or more. Polyester staple fibre spinning generally needs IV above about 0.60 dL/g, so a spinner either takes low-IV chip as a blend share with higher-IV flake or raises its IV in-house. Solid-state polycondensation does that: the chip is held for hours at 200 to 230 °C under vacuum or nitrogen, the chains lengthen, and IV climbs from the mid-0.50s to bottle or filament grade. A melt-phase reactor on the extruder gives a smaller lift. Colour is fixed and cannot be corrected: dark and black chip, reported as a low L* value, goes only into black or dark end-uses, coloured chip into pigmented products, and off-white or semi-dull chip with titanium dioxide from the original fibre keeps that dullness. Water content is reported per lot and the chip is dried before spinning. Because the viscosity number is below 78 ml/g, the chip is classified as other polyethylene terephthalate in primary form under HS 3907.69 and clears as a polymer, not as plastic waste.

The buyers fall into four groups. Polyester staple fibre and nonwoven spinners that run black or dark dope-dyed fibre for automotive felts, insulation, geotextile and fibrefill can absorb dark chip, often as a blend. Polyester polyol makers break the chip down by glycolysis for rigid PU and PIR foam, where IV does not matter and a brown polyol is normal; they compare the chip with coloured bottle flake on price. Strapping and sheet plants take chip only after an IV upgrade, or as a minority blend. Yarn spinners nominated by a clothing brand take textile-derived chip where the brand pays for a textile-to-textile claim. That claim rests on certification: the Global Recycled Standard and the Recycled Claim Standard verify recycled input and chain of custody through a transaction certificate on each shipment, and GRS adds social and chemical criteria at the plant. Neither proves IV, colour consistency or spinnability; those come from the certificate of analysis and a spinning trial. One plant offers lots from a few tens of tonnes to about 150 MT a month. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers textile-derived and low-IV rPET chip from recyclers in the UK, the EU, Turkey and India, against the recycler's certificate of analysis per lot showing IV, L* and b* colour, water content, melting point and TiO2 where present, the GRS or RCS transaction certificate, photographs and a 25 kg trial sample where the buyer asks for one. Chip moves in 1 MT big bags or octabins, by curtain-sider truck inside Europe and in 20-ft or 40-ft containers by sea, on FCA, FOB, CFR and CIF terms. Send the IV band, colour, water content, whether you have SSP on site, monthly volume and delivery point, 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.