PET is widely recycled as a material, making a large contribution to the recycling targets required for plastics by the EU directive. When material recycling is not feasible, PET can be incinerated with energy recovery.
Moreover, PET usually does not contain heavy metals and/or substances dangerous for the environment.
PET can be recovered, and the material reused, by simple washing processes to regenerate clean washed polymer flake (mechanical recycling), or by chemical treatment to break down the PET into oligomers or up to the starting monomers, terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol (chemical recycling). These intermediates are then purified and repolymerised into new PET resins. A final option, for PET that is unsuitable for material recycling (e.g., very dirty, or too contaminated to clean), is to use PET as an energy source.