Since 2025, PET beverage bottles sold in the EU must contain at least 25% recycled plastic. The number is well known. The way it is measured is not, and the difference matters more than the figure. The 25% is calculated as an average across all PET bottles placed on the market in a Member State, not as a threshold every bottle or every producer has to meet. That single design choice explains why the obligation has moved rPET demand less than the headline suggests, and why the rules arriving in 2030 will behave differently.
What the rule says
The obligation comes from the Single-Use Plastics Directive. From 2025, PET beverage bottles must contain a minimum of 25% recycled plastic, averaged across the national market. From 2030 the requirement widens: 30% recycled content for all plastic beverage bottles, not only PET.
Two features are doing quiet work here. The scope in 2025 is PET only, which is the one polymer with an established food-contact recycling route. And the unit of account is the national market, which is a reporting unit rather than a commercial one.
Why an average is not an obligation
If a target applies to a national average, no individual bottle has to hit it. A large beverage company running 50% recycled content across its portfolio creates room for smaller fillers to run well below 25% without the national figure failing. The compliance conversation happens between the Member State and the Commission, and only reaches the producer through whatever national mechanism the Member State chooses to build.
The commercial consequence is that rPET demand created by this rule concentrates rather than spreads. Buyers with brand exposure, retailer pressure or their own published targets buy food-grade rPET at a premium. Buyers without those pressures wait, because nothing in the directive puts a number on their own line.
That is visible in pricing. At the end of June 2026, rPET flakes were assessed at EUR 1,331 to 1,341 per tonne and rPET pellets at EUR 1,718 to 1,728 per tonne, DDP Northwest Europe. A recycler reading those numbers is looking at a market where demand is real but narrow. Our note on recyclate prices at the end of June sets out the rest of the curve.
The 2030 rules are built differently
The recycled content obligations under the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation start on 1 January 2030, and they use a different unit of account. Contact-sensitive packaging with PET as the main component must contain 30% recycled content, and contact-sensitive packaging from other plastics 10%, rising to 50% and 25% respectively on 1 January 2040. The average is calculated per manufacturing site, per calendar year.
| SUP Directive | PPWR, from 2030 | |
|---|---|---|
| Averaged over | National market | Manufacturing site, calendar year |
| Who answers for it | Member State | The site operator |
| Scope in force | PET beverage bottles | Contact-sensitive packaging, by polymer |
Moving the average from a country to a factory changes who has to find the material. A site cannot borrow compliance from a competitor’s portfolio. That is the mechanism most likely to broaden rPET and recycled polyolefin demand beyond the brands already buying, and it is the reason the 2030 date matters more to recyclers than the 2025 one ever did.
The open question: chemically recycled content
Whether output from chemical recycling counts toward these percentages is not a detail. It decides whether the targets can be met with the mechanical capacity Europe actually has.
The Commission set out rules for calculating, verifying and reporting chemically recycled content in single-use beverage bottles for the first time, consulting on them in July 2025 with a Member State vote planned for that autumn. We looked at the conditions attached in our piece on counting chemically recycled content in PET bottles. Until that question is settled, any forecast of 2030 rPET demand carries an assumption inside it that is worth stating out loud.
Frequently asked questions
Does every PET bottle have to contain 25% recycled plastic?
No. The 25% requirement applying since 2025 is calculated as an average across all PET beverage bottles placed on the market in a Member State, not per bottle or per producer.
What changes in 2030?
The Single-Use Plastics Directive raises the requirement to 30% recycled content for all plastic beverage bottles. Separately, PPWR recycled content obligations for contact-sensitive packaging begin on 1 January 2030.
How is the PPWR target measured?
As an average per manufacturing site over a calendar year, which means an individual site has to meet it rather than a national market as a whole.
Does chemically recycled content count?
The Commission consulted in July 2025 on the first EU rules for calculating, verifying and reporting chemically recycled content in single-use beverage bottles, with a Member State vote planned for autumn 2025. The conditions attached are the substance of that question.
Why has the 25% rule not lifted rPET prices further?
Because a national average lets demand concentrate among producers with brand or retailer pressure, while others have no individual number to meet.
