The one-two punch of cheap virgin polyethylene terephthalate (PET) containers on the market and a flood of imports that undercut US prices is wreaking havoc on the US recycling industry.
Leading experts discussed the topic and a possible path forward for the troubled industry Thursday at the panel “PET Packaging: Solving for an Out-of-Sync System,” sponsored by The Recycling Partnership.
PET price plummets
The US collects about 2 billion pounds of PET bottles for recycling annually, but recycling plants are finding it harder to sell in the flooded market, according to The Recycling Partnership CEO Keefe Harrison.
Recycling also faces headwinds on cost, according to Alasdair Carmichael, program director for the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR).
“A bale of PET is now as cheap as it’s ever been,” he said, adding that costs have increased dramatically over the last two decades.
PET prices plummeted in 2025, with a pound fetching 22.25 cents in October 2024 and dropping to 1 cent in August 2025, according to OPIS, a Dow Jones Company.
Carmichael said it’s not all doom and gloom in the industry, though, noting that two new factories have opened, and two of the five shuttered factories are operating in a limited capacity.
PET imports undermine US programs
The problem with imports is partly driven by companies that face state recycling requirements, according to Kate Eagles, program director of policy and markets at the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR).
“Nearly 25% of recycled PET is estimated to be sourced from overseas, and that undermines US programs, frankly,” she said. “Second, there’s a lot of inexpensive virgin plastic on the market, so many companies have stopped using recycled PET or are using less because virgin PET is so inexpensive.”
Those imports are coming from countries like Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Eagles noted that five states – California, Washington, New Jersey, Maine and Connecticut – require recycled PET in plastic bottles, and more states need to join.
“We need more states to require recycled PET and higher penalties [for noncompliance],” she said. “We hear from members that some brands just pay the fines and don’t buy the recycled PET.”
Maintaining public trust
Among the biggest concerns in the industry is maintaining public trust in the process, and when recycling plants have no place to sell, the material eventually goes to a landfill, according to Christopher Slafter, senior sustainability specialist with the San Mateo, Calif., Sustainability Department.
“When you have a diminishing value of PET bales, you have dwindling markets,” he said. “And I think that that goes hand in hand, at least in part, with a drop in public trust.”
He noted that his city developed a recycling guide to educate San Mateo residents on where they can take certain kinds of recycling and which businesses accept the various kinds of recycled material.
“We need to also let them know what recycling actually looks like – a bottle doesn’t necessarily become another bottle,” he said. “It probably becomes a carpet or, fill-in for the jacket I’m wearing.”
Government buy-in
Securing long-term contracts from communities is the most important goal for establishing stability in the industry, according to Eagles.
She said those kinds of relationships give confidence to banks when facilities need to upgrade equipment, for example.
“We definitely have some PET contracts, but they tend to be maybe a year or so, or maybe no contract at all,” she said “Industry relationships have been super important, but you can’t show a relationship to your bank to get an equipment loan or other asset loans to really improve or to convince investors that you have what it takes to invest.”
