Still cheating despite heavy penalties? Identification criteria for virgin and recycled PET

The production cost of virgin PET is relatively low, while the cost of recycled PET is relatively high due to recycling, cleaning, processing and other links. In order to pursue higher profits, some unscrupulous merchants may use virgin PET to impersonate recycled PET. A few days ago, the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System announced that Suzhou Jiahai Special Fiber Co., Ltd. (fined 1.8 million) and Suzhou Jingpei New Materials Technology Co., Ltd. (fined 1.5 million) used virgin chemical fiber to impersonate recycled chemical fiber and then sold it after labeling. Virgin impersonated recycled, with sales exceeding 10 million! National standards urgently need to be implemented . Impersonating recycled with virgin is not an isolated case. At the beginning of this year, Suzhou Yu Nianshui Fiber Technology Co., Ltd. was fined 400,000 yuan by the Jiangsu Provincial Market Supervision Administration for fraud in the sales process and using virgin silk as recycled silk. With so much fraud, how can companies distinguish between virgin and recycled PET?

Identification of recycled PET ingredients

There are significant differences in the production process and source between virgin PET and post-consumer physical recycled PET, which makes the two show certain regular differences in the characteristics of volatile components. By analyzing the volatile components in PET materials, representative characteristic components can be screened out, providing technical support for the identification of virgin and recycled PET.

Among the third batch of recommended national standard plan projects for 2024 released by the National Standards Administration, 11 national standards for recycled plastics have been selected into the list of national standard plans supervised by the State Council!

Among them, "Identification of Recycled Plastic Ingredients Part 1: Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Materials" (National Standard Plan No.: 20241695-T-606) proposes a method for identifying virgin and recycled PET based on headspace gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-GC-MS) technology . By analyzing the volatile components in PET samples and combining them with a random forest classification model, efficient identification of whether the sample is post-consumer physically recycled PET can be achieved. This method is not only suitable for the identification of virgin and post-consumer physically recycled PET, but also can provide a reference for the identification of components of other types of plastics. ( The pre-review time for this standard is May 2025 )

To ensure the scientificity and reliability of the detection method, this standard combines the current relevant standards to clarify the standardized procedures for sample preparation, instrument reference conditions, data processing, and specific steps for model construction and evaluation. It aims to provide systematic, repeatable, and traceable technical guidance for the plastic recycling industry, and to facilitate the efficient recycling of plastic waste.