Technological Children’s and Leisure Institute AIJU and Valencia Polytechnic University UPV are collaborating on an innovative recycling system for multilayer PET containers. This system aims to enable the recovery of more than 800,000 tonnes of waste annually in Europe, particularly from multilayer PET, to support the shoe, toy, and construction sectors while reducing the carbon footprint and limiting environmental impact on daily life.
To introduce the project and its benefits, an explanatory video is being produced. The video will demonstrate how recycled plastic at a competitive cost can be generated compared with other market alternatives currently available.
The initiative, funded by the Valencia Innovation Agency, is Revestech. This entity researches, designs, and manufactures waterproofing solutions, while Iber Resinas focuses on the recycling, commercialization, and reuse of post-consumer materials.
Asunción Martínez, the project’s principal investigator at AIJU, explains that besides diversifying and recovering raw material from the existing waste stream, a key advantage of the system is its affordability and low environmental impact because it does not require stratification. Moreover, the resulting material does not compete with multi-layer PET but with other polyolefins that are in high demand in the market.
Verification of repeatability in the industry
During the validation phase, the reproducibility of the raw material is tested in the context of its use in footwear, toys, and construction. Mechanical and thermal properties are analyzed to determine their contribution to final products. In addition, AIJU considers factors such as chemical composition, compliance with toy safety standards, and the production processes used to manufacture the products, including injection, extrusion, molding, and lamination, along with aesthetic additives. The decisive factors are the end product, economic feasibility of scale, and application of materials within the production chain.
Thus, establishing material requirements in collaboration with partner companies has been essential to the project. These agreements ensure that materials meet durability and safety standards while expanding the business capabilities of the collaborators through sustainable solutions for their products.
As Martínez emphasizes, this research helps manufacturers adopt recycled materials that previously had limited pathways. The materials retain desirable physical, chemical, and mechanical properties suited for manufacturing without sacrificing production efficiency, product quality, or price.
By supporting the adoption of these new, more sustainable materials, manufacturers, together, contribute to a future that is more sustainable for Europe as a whole.
About 57 percent of plastic packaging waste in Europe is incinerated, landfilled, or buried. Multilayer PET containers are among the primary waste streams, often ending up in yellow recycling bins intended for packaging materials.
The composition of multilayer PET complicates mechanical recycling. Yet turning this waste into usable raw materials is essential for global sustainability and to meet European Commission targets for a circular economy.
For Spanish manufacturers, integrating new recycled materials into production requires confirming the recyclables’ quality and reliable raw material availability estimates. Measuring recycled content is complex and requires tracing the product to its source, controlling recycled content, refining its composition and mechanical properties, and identifying the relevant substances. Initiatives like this project promote sustainable alternative raw materials and their seamless integration into products.
Aida Grau, head of R&D at Revestech, notes a responsibility to deliver increasingly sustainable solutions in both processes and materials. Collaboration with AIJU enables work on one of the major challenges, delivering a material with thermoplastic properties derived from environmentally friendly recycled inputs that can be processed and endowed with the required technical characteristics for finished products.
Borja Sanz, director of Iber Resinas SL, highlights that the project opens avenues to address waste that is not easily recyclable today and to give it a second life. He stresses that the circular economy remains highly relevant in contemporary times.