Q1. Could you start by giving us a brief overview of your professional background, particularly focusing on your expertise in the industry?

I started working in the recycling business 15 years ago at the Elana PET company, the first Polish PET bottles recycler. I was responsible for purchasing PET bales. I managed to build my own network of suppliers, with which I have been in contact to this day. After around 2.5 years, I became a purchase and sales manager, responsible for purchasing raw materials and selling PET flakes in Poland and Europe. I managed to build my own portfolio of customers, built business relations and significantly contribute to the company’s growth.
After 6 years of working in Elana PET, I decided to quit and develop my skills with different plastics, especially HDPE. I chose to work in a Czech Republic company called Globodera, where I was the Commercial Director for the Polish market, responsible for building the purchase and sales market in Poland for the product that Globodera was dealing with. After more than a year, I decided to quit this company as their work ethic was not what I was looking for. After Globodera, I decided to establish my own trading company called MONOMER. Simply buying low and selling high in the recycling business. 
Also doing consulting. I have my own entrepreneurship to this day. In the meantime, within my company, I signed a contract with Vita Plastics, a Dutch compounder and trading company, as commercial representative for Poland. After a year, I got a proposition from LERG PET to work with them as commercial manager, where I am responsible for purchases and sales of recycled PET materials they are dealing with (PET bottles, PET flakes, PET regranulate). I am currently working there, plus I still have the MONOMER company.

Q2. How do you see demand growth for recycled plastics vs virgin PET evolving in Europe and globally?

Demand growth for recycled plastics is looking promising, but there are a few threats to that market. In Europe, what is driving growth and will continue to drive it in the upcoming years is regulation by the European Union, which demands the use of recycled plastics in packaging. Currently, the most advanced regulations are applied to PET, but they will expand in the near future to Polyolefins (PE and PP). Demand for using 25-30-50% (consecutively in upcoming years) of recycled PET in packaging will drive growth significantly. The threats are cheaper imports from the Asian market, especially, but the EU is making moves (tariffs, demand to use European plastic to fulfill regulations fully) to protect the European market.
Another problem for European plastics is cheap virgin prices (it applies to PP, PE, and PET) when recycled products are more expensive than virgin plastics. This situation caused several closures of big recycling facilities across Europe.
We could expect that slowly recycling regulation will apply to the rest of the world, and globally we should see growth of this market. Without regulations and with cheap virgin prices, it will be challenging to see significant growth in Asia. However, we can still observe countries with low energy and labor costs, such as India, where PET recycling is currently experiencing significant growth.

Q3. How are EU directives on recycled content and packaging waste shaping sourcing and sales strategies for PET?

As I mentioned in my previous answer, a few EU directives have a significant impact on the market. The most advanced directives applied for PET right now, but I can see that in the near future, they will also apply to HDPE and PP – this is a matter of technology.
First of all, a deposit system for PET bottles across Europe is causing more and more supply of feedstock material, with higher purity and more predictable available volumes. This is allowing recyclers to strategize their purchases more efficiently and to produce higher-quality recyclates.
Directives that mandate the use of recycled PET in packaging are creating a situation where companies must start using regranulates from recycling, even if they are 80% more expensive than virgin PET. Because of this and the deposit system, what I can see is that more and more material will be functioning in closed loops between the deposit system organization (which owns PET waste bottles), recyclers, and end users.

Q4. Which end-use industries (packaging, textiles, automotive) present the biggest growth opportunities for recycled PET in the next 3–5 years?

I would say packaging. It’s because of all those things I answered before: regulations demanding the use of recycled plastic – 25% of recycled PET in PET bottles from 2025, 30% recycled PET in bottles from 2030. Considering the volume of virgin PET that will need to be replaced, there is a risk that the European market may not have sufficient recycled material, and companies may be forced to import from outside the European market. Europe, and that will drive the growth of this market in Asia and Africa.

Q5. What are the most critical product qualities buyers in PET recycling look for— purity, consistency, food-grade certification, or something else?

Consistency of quality. Recycled products could be used in many different applications, and there are many different qualities within the same product. One could find usage not only for high-quality recycled products, but there is also a market for lower qualities, of course, with cheaper prices. If companies could use the second or 3rd class of recycled product, the most important thing for them is to receive consistent quality. Of course, it is always easier (in terms of sales, not production) to provide high-quality materials, but they are more expensive.
Food-grade certifications (EFSA, FDA) are essential for companies producing packaging that comes into contact with food. I also see significant growth in demand for the Recyclass certification, which certifies the whole recycling process. The more I can see that companies with the Recyclass certificate want to work only with suppliers that also have the Recyclass certification. It brings certainty about the process and quality.

Q6. Who are the most active players in the European recycled PET market, and how do they differentiate themselves?

The most active player is ALPLA, which is constantly expanding its capacities and possibilities in the recycled market, not only in Europe, but also globally. In Europe, their recycling division functions under the PET RECYCLING TEAM brand. They have recycling lines in Austria, Poland, and Romania. They differentiate themselves by having a whole recycling loop within their own group, so they can sell the final product to the customer. As the PET RECYSLING TEAM company, they produce regranulates, they sell them to their mother company ALPLA, which produces preforms, then ALPLA can offer preforms to end-users. This gives them a significant advantage in the market.

Q7. If you were an investor looking at companies within the space, what critical question would you pose to their senior management?

The short list of key questions I would ask:

• What technology are they using? Who is the producer of the line, what devices do they have, and how many optical sorters are there
• What is their production capacity
• What are the sources of feedstock they are using
• What certificates do they have, especially for food contact products