PCR / PIR

The two letters that decide what a recycled-content claim is worth. PCR — post-consumer recyclate — comes from material that completed its life with an end user: collected bottles, films, packaging. PIR — post-industrial (pre-consumer) recyclate — comes from manufacturing streams that never reached a consumer: offcuts, start-up scrap, regrind.

Both are legitimate; they are not interchangeable. PIR is cleaner and more consistent; PCR carries the policy weight, because recycling regulation exists to pull waste out of the consumer stream. The UK Plastic Packaging Tax currently accepts both toward its 30% threshold, with the expected 2027 change moving to post-consumer only. EN 15343 defines how content is calculated and traced. The practical rule: never accept a "recycled content" figure without its PCR/PIR split in writing — our batch declarations state it as standard.