INTERVIEW: “How long European PET producers can hang on depends on how long the companies can afford to keep losing money” – Petcore president Antonello Ciotti

— By PIE staff — 

Europe’s PET industry is under intense strain as producers battle collapsing margins, surging imports, and a volatile recycling market. Antonello Ciotti, president of Petcore Europe (Brussels; www.petcore-europe.org), talks to PIE about the forces driving this crisis – from low-cost competition and sluggish rPET uptake to the gaps in Europe’s circular framework. Drawing on decades in the polyester and packaging sectors, Ciotti outlines why fair-trade measures and stronger verification systems are vital if Europe is to protect its production base and reclaim control over its recycling future.

PIE: European producers are engaged in a fierce competition about prices. According to our calculations, prices are sometimes even below production costs. How long can this continue?
Antonello Ciotti: Your calculations are correct and it’s tricky. The fact is that European PET producers are currently in a fight for survival. How long they can hang on rather depends on how long the companies can afford to keep losing money.

The situation is that importer quotas are now at around 50%, meaning that half of Europe’s PET supply is coming from outside the EU27, and it is these outside producers who are dictating the market price. We have already seen companies reducing their capacity and closing factories in Europe because of this.

Petcore Europe is looking at anti-dumping measures against third countries like Vietnam who are among the worst offenders. What we really need to redress the situation, is measures such as those enjoyed by Europe’s primary producers in other industry sectors.

We are observing a decline in the use of rPET. Is this set to impact the sales volumes of virgin PET?
Ciotti: In some cases, the reduction in rPET volumes is pushing up the sales of virgin material, and yes, we too have observed some volume migrating to virgin.

However, rPET volumes should be increasing and not decreasing due to EU regulatory requirements for a percentage of recycled content in packaging. Aside from the multinationals, many brands are not meeting their regulatory requirements due to prohibitive prices for rPET.

And the fact is that there are no penalties for those who do not meet their rPET targets, so there is no incentive to comply. There is also no clear methodology to assess the recycled content of material that is coming in from third countries labelled as “rPET”. We need better systems for tracking material so that we understand its composition and have proof that whatever is declared has been checked and verified.

Non-EU suppliers need to provide greater evidence to match the two basic EU requirements of recycled material for food contact – that it comes from differentiated collection schemes and that it comprises at least 95% containers used in food contact.

As long as there is no accountability and no checks and balances, I don’t see the current situation changing anytime soon.

We see a massive premium for rPET compared with the virgin variant. Yet, recycling facilities are being shuttered or are up for sale. Why do you think this is? How much does the premium for rPET need to be for recycling facilities to become economical?
Ciotti: As I said, the lack of penalties for those who do not meet the rPET content targets means that there is a lack of urgency. Meanwhile, in the absence of a rigorous system for testing products claiming to be rPET coming into the EU at cheap prices, I don’t see an immediate solution as it has led to a very distorted situation.

Basically, it all boils down to how the prices of the two materials are structured – virgin PET prices are based on the raw material price plus other costs, whereas rPET prices are based on the price of collected materials plus the cost of conversion plus other costs. The problem we face is that recycling PET raw material, i.e. collected bottles, is much more expensive than the virgin raw material. Food-grade rPET granules currently carry a premium of some EUR 800/t over the price of virgin PET. Moreover, the waste feedstock for recycling now costs almost 10 times more within the EU than it does outside of it.

This obviously isn’t sustainable, and I worry that if we don’t protect Europe’s autonomy over its essential sectors such as PET then we will lose our independence and risk reliance on outside partners, hence missing our goal to match the circularity targets of the Green Deal.

To what extent do anti-dumping duties really help European producers?
Ciotti: They help a lot. Anti-dumping, by definition, eliminates low prices that are based on products being dumped at uncompetitive prices. Rebalancing global economics means you can remove what is not in line with WTO rules and set a more level playing field for open trade and business. This will be crucial for the whole future and circularity of the PET industry in Europe.

We are seeing a decline in contract agreements for 2026. Is this a phase or a growing trend?
Ciotti: I would say it’s too early to say as contracts are always discussed in Q4 and so we don’t have any insights into how it will go this year. Why don’t we catch up on this in 2026?

Antonello Ciotti has been president of industry association Petcore Europe since 2022, and has been heading Italian plastic packaging consortium Corepla (Milan; www.corepla.it) since 2016. Ciotti is also chairman of producer organisation PET Europe (Brussels; www.pet-europe.org). Overall, Ciotti has more than 42 years of experience in the plastics and chemical industry, having in 1983 started at Dow (Midland, Michigan; www.dow.com), where he is currently global commercial director.