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DID YOU KNOW?

Little-Known Facts about PET Plastic

• PET (polyethylene terephthalate) is actually polyester. When PET is used for bottles, containers and other applications, it is called PET or PET resin.  When PET is used as a fiber, it is typically called polyester. 
  
  
• The PET bottle was invented by Nathaniel C. Wyeth, a DuPont engineer and brother of American painter Andrew Wyeth. The patent was issued to Wyeth in 1973 and assigned to DuPont.
  
  
• According to the EPA, recycling one pound of PET bottles (that's about 10 two-liter soda bottles) saves approximately 26,000 BTUs of energy.
  
  
• PET bottles and the sun are helping millions of people in developing countries obtain potable water. Using a system called SODIS (solar water disinfection), inhabitants set water-filled PET bottles in the sun for several hours or days - depending on how much sunlight is available - as a simple but effective means of destroying disease-causing bacteria and gaining safe drinking water.
  
  
• Approximately 1.5 billion pounds of used PET bottles and containers are collected in the U.S. each year for recycling.  PET is the most recycled plastic in the world.
  
  
• A single-serve PET bottle (0.5 liter) is strong enough to hold nearly 40 times its weight in water.
  
  
• Chemists keep finding new ways to make PET lighter without losing any strength. A 2-liter PET bottle that weighed 68 grams in 1980 now weighs as little as 42 grams.
  
  
• Woven, knitted and braided PET fibers are sometimes used by surgeons for implantable sutures, cardiovascular patches and wound repair meshes because of PET's bio-stability and durability.
  
  
• More than 120 U.S. colleges and universities - including the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Michigan State and Wake Forest - are using graduation caps and gowns made from 100% recycled PET.
• Americans recycle more than 1 million single-serve PET water bottles every hour.

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