Fast-tracking rPET adoption in packaging: BMT at Plastics Recycling Show Europe 2025
BMT's Head of Material Characterisation, Dr Josh Turner, joined industry leaders in Amsterdam this April for the Plastics Recycling Show Europe (PRSE) — one of the most focused events in the European recycled plastics calendar.
Josh's conversations centred on three challenges that come up again and again for manufacturers and brand owners navigating the shift to recycled materials: fast-tracking rPET adoption, reducing production defects, and maintaining the clarity and quality that consumers expect from PET packaging.
Why rPET adoption is harder than it looks
Increasing recycled content isn't simply a case of substituting one material for another. rPET behaves differently to virgin PET under stretch blow moulding conditions, its thermal and mechanical properties vary depending on source, processing history, and contamination levels. Manufacturers who don't account for that variability often discover the hard way, through production defects, scrapped batches and missed deadlines.
BMT's data-driven approach to plastics recycling
At BMT, our approach to these challenges starts with accurate material characterisation, understanding exactly how a given batch of rPET or bio-based material will behave before it reaches the production line. That data feeds directly into simulation models that predict process outcomes, and into lab-scale testing using BLOWSCAN to validate those predictions under real blowing conditions.
This combination helps manufacturers and packaging companies:
Optimise processing parameters specifically for rPET and bio-based materials, rather than relying on virgin PET process settings that don't translate
Eliminate pearlescence and haze by identifying the root cause, whether that's heating profile, stretch ratio, or material variability, before it becomes a production-wide issue
Reduce trial-and-error by replacing guesswork with measured data, cutting both material waste and development time
A growing conversation across Europe
It was genuinely energising to connect with so many industry leaders at PRSE who are actively driving sustainable packaging innovation forward. The appetite for moving beyond trial-and-error rPET processing toward a measured, validated, data-driven approach was clear in every conversation Josh had.
Facing similar challenges with rPET adoption or recycled material defects? Get in touch with our team to find out how BMT's characterisation and simulation services could help.