## PETRA launches new recyclability testing program
_By Editorial Staff, Resource Recycling_
The PET Resin Association has developed a new voluntary program to help plastics firms gauge the recyclability of PET resins.
Testing and monitoring programs are considered essential to ensuring new resin technologies do not create overly complex or expensive processing challenges for recycling firms. Dubbed the Recyclability & Innovation Model, the new system combines elements of existing North American and European recycling best-practices guidelines and includes annual third-party testing and monitoring. The system uses testing and assessment criteria for newly-developed resins intended for concentrations of between 2- 10-percent, and can be scaled to test resins in concentrations of up to 50 percent.
PETRA says the new methodology is more in line with the needs of the modern plastics industry, and that similar voluntary standards developed by The Association for Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers have been "increasingly at odds with advances in resin science and resulting innovations."
For its part, APR responded to the new standards in an email to members, saying "[We] concluded after considerable examination that test concentrations should be 50 percent for purposes of recyclability declaration and recognition. Testing at such concentration serves the long term best interest of our plastics recycling industry. PETRA members have declared that testing limits as low as 2 percent should be allowable. We disagree, strongly, with the conditional nature of the PETRA model."
More on the new testing standards is available [here](http://www.petresin.org/recyclability-innovation.asp).
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URL: http://resource-recycling.com/node/3174
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