EFSA Confirms Positive “Scientific Opinion” for Starlinger recoSTAR PET art Recycling Process

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has issued a positive Scientific Opinion for Starlinger’s bottle-to-bottle recycling process recoSTAR PET art under the stricter requirements of Regulation (EU) 2022/1616. This marks the first endorsement of its decontamination performance, reducing allowable residues by up to 50 % and paves the way for faster authorisation and licensing to PET recyclers.

Under the updated Regulation (EU) 2022/1616, permissible limits for contaminants such as toluene, chlorobenzene and methyl salicylate have been cut by up to 50 %. In a comprehensive challenge test, the recoSTAR PET art process not only met but exceeded the required decontamination efficiencies. Upon publication of the official Recycling Process Authorization Number (RAN) by the European Commission, Starlinger can license the process directly to PET recyclers, eliminating the need for further safety tests and accelerating market entry.

Introduced in 2022 as the successor to the recoSTAR PET iV+ series, the recoSTAR PET art system achieves:

• 25 % lower energy consumption per kilogram of PET processed
• 15 % higher throughput, with capacities ranging from 1,000 kg/h to 3,200 kg/h

These improvements support the circular economy by reducing process energy demands and increasing the supply of food-grade PET recyclates for beverage packaging.

Starlinger’s technology underpins the annual production of approximately 2.5 million tonnes of food-grade PET regranulate by customers worldwide. Of this total, nearly 300,000 tonnes are already processed on 18 recoSTAR PET art systems operating across Europe, the Americas, Africa, India and Southeast Asia. This broad adoption underscores the system’s reliability and its role in advancing sustainability and recycling goals in the plastics industry.