First, let’s define the terms.
PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, is one of the world’s most widely used plastics. It is used to manufacture beverage bottles, food packaging, polyester clothing and textiles, carpeting, and countless everyday consumer products.
New PET, also called virgin PET, is manufactured primarily from fossil fuels. Crude oil and natural gas are refined into petrochemical feedstocks, which are then chemically processed into the building blocks used to produce PET resin. That resin is melted and molded or spun to create everyday products.
rPET, or recycled polyethylene terephthalate, is the same polymer, but with a different origin. Instead of being made from newly extracted oil and gas, it begins as an existing PET product, such as a discarded beverage bottle. The plastic is collected, sorted, cleaned, shredded into flakes, melted, purified, and remanufactured into PET resin that can be used to produce the same products as virgin PET
The chemistry is fundamentally the same. The difference isn’t the material; it’s the source. Virgin PET comes from newly extracted fossil fuels. rPET comes from plastic we have already produced and has about a 79% lower carbon footprint than manufacturing virgin PET.
Now, let’s begin.
Every day, more than a billion PET beverage bottles enter the global market. One widely cited estimate puts global plastic bottle purchases at roughly one million bottles every minute. That is about 1.4 billion bottles every day. The United Nations Development Programme has reported that companies have the capacity to produce about 20,000 PET bottles every second — more than 1.7 billion bottles per day. And still, our oceans, beaches, waterways, landfills, and communities remain polluted with PET bottles waiting to be recovered.
So here is the obvious QUESTION:
If rPET can make the same products with a substantially lower carbon footprint while helping clean our environment of plastic pollution, why are we allowing more fossil fuels to be extracted to produce new PET?
…and the ANSWER: Because producing plastic from new PET is currently the more profitable business model.
Virgin PET is cheaper and easier for companies to buy because the global petrochemical system is currently built for extraction. The oil and gas are extracted. The feedstocks are refined. The resin is manufactured at a massive scale. The inputs are standardized, predictable, and controlled from the beginning.
rPET, on the other hand, begins with their waste — and their waste has to be recovered before it can become a resource. That means bottles must be collected, transported, sorted by material and color, cleaned, de-labeled, shredded, washed, decontaminated, melted, filtered, certified, and remanufactured. For food-grade rPET, the standards are even higher.
That recovery system costs money. In the United States, a 2024 National Institute of Standards and Technology report found that general recycling collection costs often exceed $300 per ton, with processing fees around $100 per ton. Those costs come before the material can even be turned back into usable resin.
A 2026 Plastics Engineering analysis put the recycled polymer premium at roughly 10–20% over virgin resin. In Europe, food-grade rPET has recently carried an even larger premium, with Packaging Europe reporting early 2025 gaps of roughly $750–$800 more per tonne than virgin PET.
Recycling plastic pollution costs money, and Big Oil is not currently required to pay. For decades, fossil fuel and petrochemical companies have profited from producing plastic without being required to build adequate systems to reclaim and reuse it at scale. They profit when virgin resin is sold. But when the product becomes waste, the burden shifts.
The public pays to clean up what the private sector profits from producing. That is the real subsidy hidden inside cheap virgin plastic. Virgin PET is cheaper to produce for Big Oil because its true costs are pushed downstream. Municipalities pay. Taxpayers pay. Communities pay. Rivers pay. Oceans pay. Wildlife pays.
On paper, virgin plastic may win the procurement spreadsheet. In the real world, the rest of us are left with the overflow.
As demand for transportation fuels changes, petrochemicals are becoming one of the fossil fuel industry’s most important long-term growth markets. This shift is happening because cars and trucks are becoming more fuel-efficient. Electric vehicles are taking a larger share of new vehicle sales. Public policy is pushing lower-emission transportation. Biofuels are replacing some petroleum-based fuels. And in some markets, gasoline demand is beginning to level off or decline.
Oil is not disappearing from transportation overnight. Planes, ships, trucks, and many cars still depend heavily on petroleum-based fuels. But the direction of growth is changing. The International Energy Agency projects that electric vehicles will account for more than 25% of new car sales globally in 2025 and that global oil demand will level off around 2030 before beginning a slow decline under its stated policies scenario.
That matters because fossil fuel companies still need future growth markets. Increasingly, petrochemicals — including the materials used to make plastics such as PET bottles and polyester textiles — are treated as one of those markets. In plain terms: as the world slowly starts burning less oil in engines, the fossil fuel industry is looking to sell more oil in plastic.
The International Energy Agency has reported that petrochemicals — including the materials used to make plastics such as PET and polyester — are expected to account for more than one-third of global oil demand growth by 2030 and nearly half of oil demand growth by 2050.
Oil companies currently do not disclose one simple future percentage of profit from plastics. But the numbers we can see are revealing. In 2024, ExxonMobil’s Chemical Products segment earned about $2.6 billion — roughly 8% of the company’s total earnings that year. TotalEnergies’ Refining & Chemicals segment represented about 10.5% of its 2024 income and nearly 13% in 2025. So though “plastic profits” are not currently reported as one clean industry-wide percentage, the direction is clear: petrochemicals are not a side issue for Big Oil. They are part of the fossil fuel industry’s long-term growth strategy.
And that is the problem. The same industry that profits from producing virgin PET has not been required to build the recovery systems needed to keep it from polluting our planet.
The Scale of the Failure Is Enormous
The OECD reported that global plastics production doubled from 234 million tonnes in 2000 to 460 million tonnes in 2019. Plastic waste more than doubled over the same period, from 156 million tonnes to 353 million tonnes. Only 9% of global plastic waste was ultimately recycled in 2019.
A more recent global analysis published in Communications Earth & Environment found that in 2022, the world produced about 400 million tonnes of plastic. Of that, about 362 million tonnes were virgin plastic and only 38 million tonnes came from recycled material. That means just 9.5% of global plastic production came from recycled sources.
Producer Responsibility Is Not Radical.
There is a policy name for what should have happened long ago: Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR. EPR means companies that profit from products or packaging are made responsible for what happens after use. EPR can include funding collection, sorting, recycling, reuse systems, and material recovery infrastructure. The United Nations Environment Programme describes EPR as a way to shift the burden of end-of-life product management away from municipalities and taxpayers and back toward the producers who profit from their initial production.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has argued that mandatory, fee-based EPR is one of the only proven ways to provide dedicated, ongoing, and sufficient funding for packaging collection, sorting, and recycling at scale.
Right now, virgin PET looks cheap because the true cost of cleanup is pushed downstream. EPR begins to put that cost back where it belongs: upstream, with the companies that profit from production.
Written by Tatiana Heckles, founder of Tu Tiki. Tu Tiki makes SUPcycled™ activewear from discarded single-use plastic.
Tu Tiki. We clean up nice.
Notes & Sources
Global plastic bottle volume & PET bottle production capacity
United Nations Development Programme. “Popping the Bottle.” UNDP. This source reports that companies worldwide have the capacity to produce approximately 20,000 PET bottles every second, or more than 1.7 billion bottles per day.
Carbon footprint of rPET compared with virgin PET
Life cycle assessment conducted for PET Recycling Team GmbH, part of the ALPLA Group. The study found that producing one kilogram of rPET at the company’s Wöllersdorf recycling plant generated 0.45 kg CO₂e, compared with 2.15 kg CO₂e for one kilogram of virgin PET. That represents a 79% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for rPET in that study. Because this figure comes from a specific facility and process, the post uses cautious language such as “lifecycle studies estimate” and “about 79%.”
Global plastic production and recycling rates
OECD. Global Plastics Outlook: Economic Drivers, Environmental Impacts and Policy Options. 2022. The OECD reports that global plastics production doubled from 234 million tonnes in 2000 to 460 million tonnes in 2019, while plastic waste more than doubled from 156 million tonnes to 353 million tonnes. After accounting for recycling losses, only 9% of global plastic waste was ultimately recycled in 2019.
Share of plastics made from recycled material
Houssini, K., et al. “Complexities of the Global Plastics Supply Chain Revealed in 2022 Global Plastics Data.” Communications Earth & Environment, 2025. The study found that global plastic production in 2022 was about 400 million tonnes. Of that, around 362 million tonnes came from virgin plastic resin and 38 million tonnes came from mechanically recycled plastic, meaning about 9.5% of global plastic production came from recycled material.
Petrochemicals as a growth market for oil demand
International Energy Agency. The Future of Petrochemicals. 2018. The IEA reports that petrochemicals are expected to account for more than one-third of global oil demand growth by 2030 and nearly half of oil demand growth by 2050. This supports the post’s argument that, as transportation fuel demand changes, petrochemicals — including plastics — remain a major long-term growth market for the fossil fuel industry.
Cost of recycling collection and processing
Thomas, Douglas S. The U.S. Plastics Recycling Economy. National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST AMS 100-64, 2024. The report found that collection costs for general recycling programs often exceed $300 per ton, with processing fees around $100 per ton. This supports the claim that rPET begins with a more expensive recovery process than virgin PET.
Recycled plastic price premium
Smithers. The Future of PCR Packaging to 2031. Smithers reports that post-consumer recycled plastic packaging currently costs around one-third more than virgin plastic. A 2026 Plastics Engineering analysis similarly reports that recycled polymers often command a 10–20% price premium over virgin resin, with higher premiums possible for food-grade rPET and other constrained materials. Packaging Europe reported that in early 2025, European rPET cost roughly $750–$800 more per tonne than virgin PET.
Oil company chemical and refining segment earnings
ExxonMobil. “ExxonMobil Announces 2024 Results.” 2025. ExxonMobil reported that its Chemical Products segment earned about $2.6 billion in 2024, an increase of $940 million versus 2023.
TotalEnergies. “Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2024 Results” and “Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2025 Results.” TotalEnergies reported results for its broader Refining & Chemicals segment, which includes petrochemicals but also refining. Because this segment is broader than plastics alone, we describe it as Refining & Chemicals rather than “plastic profit.”
Extended Producer Responsibility
United Nations Environment Programme. “Extended Producer Responsibility.” UNEP defines EPR as a policy approach that makes producers responsible for products throughout their lifecycle, including the post-consumer stage. UNEP explains that EPR shifts the burden of managing end-of-life products away from municipalities and taxpayers and toward the producers who place products on the market.
Producer funding for collection, sorting, and recycling
Ellen MacArthur Foundation. “Extended Producer Responsibility: Statement and Position Paper.” The Foundation argues that mandatory, fee-based EPR is one of the only proven ways to provide dedicated, ongoing, and sufficient funding for packaging collection, sorting, and recycling systems.