Bottles made of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) can be utilised to create lower grade products like carpets. To make a food-grade plastic, the bottles need to be hydrolysed down to monomers, that are refined and then re-polymerised to make recycled PET. In several countries, recycled PET plastics are coded with the resin identification code number 1 inside the universal recycling symbol, which is often or generally located at the bottom of the container. When the consumer discards the empty PET packaging, it becomes PET waste. However, in the recycling industry, this is referred to as post-consumer recycled PET. When the PET bottles are returned to an authorised redemption centre, or the original seller in some jurisdictions, the deposit is partly or fully refunded to the redeemer. In either of the cases, the collected post-consumer recycled PET is taken to recycling centres. Those centres are known as material recovery facilities or MRF, where it is sorted as well as further removed from other materials like metal, objects made out of other rigid plastics, for example, PVC, HDPE, polypropylene, flexible plastics. Post-consumer recycled PET is also sorted into distinct unique colour fractions: transparent or uncoloured recycled PET, blue and green coloured recycled PET, and the remainder into a mixed colours fraction.
