rPET Reusable Shopping Bags: The Full Guide

rPET shopping bags are one of the reusable bags European retailers ask us for most. They are made from recycled PET plastic, and mostly from bottles: Textile Exchange puts the share of recycled polyester that comes from PET bottles at 98%. They are built to be used again and again, and uncoated rPET has a soft, fabric-like feel that most other shopping bag materials do not.

The difficult part is the end of the bag’s life. Many rPET shopping bags are laminated: a polypropylene film is bonded over the PET fabric to carry the print and keep water out. That puts two different polymers in one bag, fused together, and we found no commercial recycling process that can separate them. On a laminated rPET bag we supply, the film and the layer that bonds it make up 39% of the bag’s weight.

So what exactly is an rPET bag, where does the recycled material come from, and what should you ask your supplier when you order your next custom rPET bags? This is the full guide.

One thing to know before you start. We have seen GRS transaction certificates where the fabric line reads 100% recycled post-consumer polyester and the certified weight is less than half the net weight of the shipment. Both numbers were correct. They describe different things, and a buyer who prints “100% recycled” on that bag is wrong.

What are rPET bags?

rPET bags are reusable bags made from recycled polyethylene terephthalate (recycled PET), which is the same polymer as polyester. According to Textile Exchange’s Materials Market Report 2025, 98% of recycled polyester comes from PET bottles. rPET shopping bags are made from two non-woven fabrics, spunbond and stitchbond, used uncoated or laminated with a polypropylene film. The recycled content of a specific order is evidenced by a GRS transaction certificate, which states post-consumer or pre-consumer content and the certified weight, but in its material line does not name the source object, such as bottles. Bk-bags supplies 11 custom rPET bag models, from 85 g/m² stitchbond and 90 g/m² white spunbond with sublimation to laminated rPET at 110 to 140 g/m², at a minimum order quantity of 10,000 pieces from Vietnam and China, and has supplied reusable bags since 2006.

Key Takeaways

• rPET and recycled polyester are the same polymer. PET is polyester. What changes is the feedstock and the paperwork, not the chemistry, and no routine lab test can tell recycled PET from virgin.
• “rPET non-woven” is not a specification. Spunbond and stitchbond are different processes with a different look, feel and print behaviour. Ask which one.
• Lamination changes the claim. On a customised laminated rPET bag we produced for a client, with a 140 g/m² body, only 85 g/m² is rPET fabric, and the bag is 59% recycled by weight. The polypropylene film is bonded to the PET, so the bag is hard to recycle.
• Do not call it eco-friendly. Say reusable, state the recycled percentage, and say it is hard to recycle. In the EU, from 27 September 2026, “eco-friendly” without a clear specification is a banned generic claim unless the bag holds a recognised ecolabel.
• The transaction certificate records a category, not an object. The material line says “Recycled Post-Consumer Polyester”. It does not say bottles. A newer feedstock field can, but only if every certificate up the chain carries it.
• Read the certified weight, not only the percentage. The percentage describes a component. The certified weight tells you how much of the shipment is actually certified.
• Put the transaction certificate in the purchase order. The seller applies for it after shipment, often months later, so your bags can be on shelf before the certificate exists.
• A GRS claim on your own branded bag needs your own GRS certification. Without it, make a specific recycled-content claim of your own, backed by the certificate.
• MOQ is 10,000 pieces across the Bk-bags rPET range.

1. rPET vs recycled polyester: one polymer, two names

rPET stands for recycled polyethylene terephthalate. Polyethylene terephthalate is the polymer that polyester fabric is made from, so rPET and recycled polyester are the same material under two names. The bag industry tends to say rPET. The textile industry and Textile Exchange certificates say recycled polyester.

The polymer is identical whether the PET started life in a bottle, a food tray, a spinning mill or an oil refinery. That has two consequences for a buyer.

Performance follows construction, not origin. An rPET bag and a virgin polyester bag of the same fabric weight, seams and handles behave comparably in use. Textile Exchange’s 2026 polyester life-cycle study confirmed the recycled products it examined were functionally equivalent to their virgin counterparts. At fibre level, mechanical recycling does degrade the polymer slightly, which is one more reason to fix fabric weight and construction in writing.

You cannot test your way to a recycled claim. A 2022 study in the journal Polymers tested 20 commercial rPET granule and flake samples and found that their thermal and mechanical properties could not separate recycled PET from virgin: every recycled sample fell inside the published range for virgin material. Tracer programmes add a marker to the fibre, such as a luminescent pigment or a synthetic DNA sequence, and can later confirm that a fabric contains the tagged fibre. That proves the material passed through the point where it was tagged. It does not prove what went in before that point. The proof of recycled content is documentary. It is a chain of custody, and the document at the end of it is the transaction certificate.

2. Where rPET actually comes from

Recycled polyester comes from four feedstocks: post-consumer PET bottles, other post-consumer PET packaging, pre-consumer polyester waste from manufacturing, and post-consumer textiles. Textile Exchange reports that 98% of recycled polyester is made from PET bottles.

Why bottles become fibre so easily

Bottle-grade PET is made to a higher intrinsic viscosity than fibre-grade PET, as Petcore Europe’s market study notes. Melting bottle flake and spinning it into fibre is therefore a step down the grade ladder, which is easy. Going the other way, from fibre back to bottle, is not.

Colour follows the bottle. Mechanical recycling cannot remove dyes or contaminants, so recycled chip and fibre take the colour of the waste that went in. One recycler in Textile Exchange’s study accepts only clear to light-blue bottles for this reason. It is why a clean white rPET needs a colour approval on the bulk material, and why some mechanically recycled material ends up dyed dark.

Staple fibre is more forgiving than filament yarn. Non-woven fabrics are commonly made from staple fibre or spun directly from flake. Woven fabrics need continuous filament yarn, and filament spinning runs at high speed and needs very consistent viscosity.

Pre-consumer waste

Pre-consumer recycled polyester is waste diverted from manufacturing. Under GRS it does not count if it could go straight back into the process that made it, and Textile Exchange excludes intermediate spinning waste, oligomer waste and cancelled orders. The GRS 4.2 Implementation Manual’s own warning sign is a spinning mill with a 50% waste rate. If a pre-consumer offer looks too cheap, ask what the waste stream is.

Textile-to-textile

Chemical recycling can break polyester back into its building blocks and remove dyes, and some chemically recycled polyester is already on the market. It is still a small supply. Carbios postponed its enzymatic recycling plant in France, Eastman delayed its second methanolysis plant in Texas, and Ioniqa went through bankruptcy protection in 2024. If a supplier offers textile-to-textile rPET at commodity volume and commodity price, ask for the documents first.

Where the rPET fabric is made

More than half of the synthetic fabric and fibre Vietnam imports comes from China. No official statistic can tell you whether the rPET in your bag is part of that. Customs codes do not separate recycled polyester from virgin polyester: not the international HS codes, and not China’s or Vietnam’s national codes.

In 2023, by value, China shipped 57% of the woven synthetic filament fabric, 53% of the non-woven fabric and 53% of the synthetic staple fibre that Vietnam imported, recycled and virgin together, according to Vietnam’s own figures in UN Comtrade. Vietnam’s customs data put China at 67% of all fabric imports in the first nine months of 2024. China is also the largest maker of the recycled fibre itself: the China Chemical Fibers Association put the country’s 2025 recycled polyester output at about 6.3 million tonnes, while Textile Exchange counted about 9.3 million tonnes made worldwide in 2024.

Vietnam also makes its own recycled polyester yarn. Century Synthetic Fiber Corporation (HOSE: STK), a listed Vietnamese yarn maker, earned about half of its 2025 revenue from recycled yarn.

The transaction certificate will not tell you where the fabric was made either. Its origin box shows where the recycled waste was collected (section 7). If fabric origin matters to your programme, ask the supplier to state it in writing.

3. Bottles or “recycled polyester”: what the difference means

For a bag fabric, “made from recycled bottles” and “made from recycled post-consumer polyester” usually describe the same material. The difference is what you can prove. A GRS transaction certificate proves the second. The first needs evidence from further up the chain.

Buyers ask this question for two reasons, and they need different answers.

If you want to know whether the material is post-consumer. The transaction certificate tells you directly, through the material code. Section 7 shows where to find it.

If you want to print “made from plastic bottles” on the bag. The material line on the certificate will not carry that claim for you, because it names a category, not an object. In Textile Exchange’s own worked example of bottles becoming fabric, the material is recorded as reclaimed post-consumer PET at the collector and becomes recycled post-consumer polyester once it is recycled. From that point on, bottle and textile feedstock look identical in the composition line.

The object is recorded upstream. The first certified company in the chain, usually the recycler, fills in a Reclaimed Material Declaration that names the feedstock, and “Reclaimed bottles” (code PD0094) is one of the options. Since December 2025, Textile Exchange has allowed that feedstock code on the recycler’s transaction certificate, and from 1 April 2027 it is required there. Later certificates in the chain may repeat it, but only if every incoming certificate carries it.

In practice:

• A bag certificate showing a feedstock code with PD0094 is real evidence that bottles were declared as the feedstock.
• A bag certificate without it proves nothing either way. Most certificates issued in 2026 will not have it.
• A recycler that buys ready-washed flakes will normally record “Flakes”, not “bottles”, even when the flakes came from bottles. Textile Exchange describes its feedstock options as a broad indication, not an exact classification.

If the bottle story matters to your campaign, ask your supplier before the order whether the feedstock field can be carried through to your certificate, and if not, what upstream evidence they can share. Keep that evidence on file. Word the claim on the bag no more strongly than the evidence.

The “one bag equals X bottles” line

Many rPET bags are sold with a line such as “made from 8 recycled bottles”. That number is arithmetic, not certification: the recycled weight of the bag divided by an assumed bottle weight. Bottle weights vary widely by size and by market, so the same bag can be “5 bottles” or “12 bottles” depending on the assumption. If you use a bottle count, calculate it from the certified weight on your own transaction certificate, write down the bottle weight you assumed, and keep the calculation.

A note on “closed loop”

Bottle-to-bag is open-loop recycling. The PET leaves the bottle system and does not return to it. The European Commission’s Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles (2022) says that turning PET bottles into textiles is not in line with the circular model for bottles, and encourages fibre-to-fibre recycling instead. That strategy is a policy document, not a ban. But “closed loop” is the wrong phrase for an rPET bag, and European buyers should not use it.

4. rPET non-woven bag materials: spunbond, stitchbond and laminated

rPET shopping bags are made from one of two non-woven fabrics. Spunbond is made from continuous filaments bonded by heat. Stitchbond is a fibre web held together by stitching. Either can be used uncoated, or laminated with a plastic film bonded to the face.

A quotation that says “rPET non-woven” has not told you which of the two you are buying. Ask.

Spunbond non-woven

Molten polymer is extruded as continuous filaments, laid down as a web and bonded in a single line, usually by a heated calender that presses a pattern of points into the fabric. That point pattern is the small dot or diamond emboss you can see on a spunbond bag.

rPET spunbond can be made directly from post-consumer bottle flake. Reifenhäuser, one of the main makers of spunbond lines, builds PET spunbond systems that run on post-consumer flake, and its own example product is a non-woven carrier bag certified to Germany’s Blue Angel label with at least 80% post-consumer content.

Feel: smooth, slightly papery, holds a crisp shape. Bk-bags reference: white rPET spunbond bag with piping, 90 g/m², sublimation printed.

PET spunbond is not PP spunbond. They look almost identical in a photograph, and most non-woven bags on the market are polypropylene, including our PP non-woven bags. PP cannot be sublimation printed (section 5), so a quotation for a “sublimation non-woven bag” should state the polymer in writing.

Stitchbond non-woven

Staple fibres are laid into a web, and a row of needles stitches a separate yarn through it to hold it together. This is the Maliwatt-type stitch-bonding process. The stitches run in parallel lines along the length of the fabric, and those lines are the easiest way to recognise stitchbond on sight.

Stitchbond looks like a knit fabric. For a bag, that means a softer, more textile-like hand than spunbond.

One thing to ask: the stitching yarn is a second yarn system, separate from the fibre web. If your claim depends on every fibre being recycled, ask what the stitching yarn is.

Feel: soft, drapes, looks like fabric. Bk-bags reference: uncoated rPET stitchbond duffle bag, stitchbond backpack, stitchbond turn-over bag and middle sewn bag, all 85 g/m² uncoated, and the 100 g/m² corner sewn bag, printed by sublimation.

A note on woven recycled polyester

Recycled polyester can also be woven into taffeta or Oxford, the fabrics used for foldable polyester bags. That is a polyester bag specification, read by denier or thread count, and our polyester bag guide covers it. When Bk-bags talks about rPET bags, it means spunbond and stitchbond.

Laminated rPET

Spunbond or stitchbond rPET with a plastic film bonded to its face. The film is usually oriented polypropylene (OPP or BOPP), and it is usually not recycled. A second plastic layer bonds the film to the fabric.

Bk-bags reference: laminated rPET zipper pouch, 110 g/m², rPET corner sewn bag, 120 g/m² laminated, and the middle sewn bag, 140 g/m² laminated.

Lamination buys print quality, water resistance and a stiffer body. In exchange, the bag’s recycled share goes down and polypropylene is bonded to the PET, so the bag cannot be called recyclable (section 6).

Ask whether the quoted weight is the base fabric or the laminated total. On our own 140 g/m² laminated rPET, 85 g/m² is the rPET fabric and 55 g/m² is film and lamination (section 6). Two quotations that both say “140 g/m²” can carry very different amounts of recycled fabric.

The comparison

5. Printing on custom rPET bags

Four print routes work on rPET bags: dye sublimation, which bonds the dye into the polyester and needs a white or light uncoated face; screen printing, for one to four spot colours; heat transfer, for full colour on dark fabric or small areas; and lamination, where the artwork is printed on a film that is then bonded to the bag.

Dye sublimation

This is where rPET beats polypropylene outright. Heat turns the dye into a gas, and the gas bonds into the polyester fibre itself. Unlimited colours, photographs and gradients, no hand feel, and nothing on the surface to crack or peel.

The conditions are firm:

1. It needs polyester. PET melts at about 260 °C and PP at about 160 °C, and sublimation runs at roughly 175 to 205 °C. Standard PP does not take sublimation dyes either. PP non-woven does not qualify, whatever the listing says.
2. It needs a white or light face. Sublimation dye is transparent and there is no white, so a light design on a dark bag is not possible.
3. It needs an uncoated face. Coating or lamination on the print side blocks it.

Our 90 g/m² white spunbond and 100 g/m² uncoated stitchbond bags are sublimation printed for exactly these reasons.

Screen printing

Ink pushed through a mesh, one screen per colour, Pantone matched. It works on every rPET substrate.

Watch one thing on dyed rPET: dye migration. At curing temperatures, disperse dye in a coloured polyester fabric can move into the ink layer, which is most visible as a white or light ink turning pink or grey on a red or dark bag. The fix is a low-bleed ink system and a controlled cure temperature, and it should be settled before the order, not discovered on the bulk.

On stitchbond, ask for a print sample on the actual fabric. The stitch lines are part of the surface.

Heat transfer

A printed film heat-pressed onto the finished bag. Full colour, works on dark rPET, suits small artwork and positions a screen cannot reach. It sits on the surface and has a hand feel. On polyester, press temperature needs care to avoid scorch marks and shine.

Lamination

The artwork is printed onto the film, normally on the reverse side so the ink sits between the film and the fabric, and the film is then laminated to the rPET. It gives the most photographic result of any route and protects the print.

6. Uncoated or laminated: recycled content and recyclability

An rPET bag is made with recycled material, but it is hard to recycle again. Lamination makes both worse: an OPP film and a polypropylene bonding layer lower the recycled share of the bag, and they fuse polypropylene to PET, which no commercial recycling process we found can separate. On a customised laminated rPET bag we produced for a client, the recycled share is 59% by weight.

Recycled content: a real calculation

These figures come from the component calculation for a customised laminated rPET shopping bag we produced for a client, 38 x 17 x 40 cm, worked out panel by panel: the area of each panel multiplied by the weight of each layer. The body and bottom are 140 g/m² laminated fabric. The handles and inner pocket are 110 g/m².

The fabric is 100% recycled. The bag is 59%. Film and lamination alone are 39% of the bag’s weight. The 59% rests on the rPET fabric being 100% recycled, which it is on this bag. On a bag whose fabric was 70% recycled, the same construction would come to about 41%.

Any supplier can produce this calculation. It is area times weight, layer by layer. Ask for it with the quotation, ours included, and check that it reconciles with the certified weight on the transaction certificate when the goods ship.

Under Textile Exchange’s rules, non-certified trims can be left out of a product’s composition only while they add up to 10% of its weight or less. Since July 2025, a coated or laminated fabric normally has to be shown on the certificate as separate components, base fabric and coating or film, rather than as one recycled fabric. Handles matter too: at least two of the 11 models in section 9 list PP webbing handles on their product pages, a third lists “PP nylon”, and none of those pages says the handles are recycled.

Are rPET bags recyclable? Hard to recycle, and laminated is harder

Laminated rPET is two polymers bonded together. The fabric is PET. The film is oriented polypropylene, and on extrusion-laminated bags the bonding layer is usually a polyolefin too. On the bag in the calculation above, it is polypropylene. PET bottle recyclers remove polypropylene caps and labels by density, because PP floats and PET sinks. That only works when the two materials come apart. When PP is fused to PET fibre, every flake carries both. The main design-for-recycling guides are written for packaging, not textile bags, but they point the same way: the US Association of Plastic Recyclers says PET layers make polypropylene flexible packaging non-recyclable, and RecyClass treats PET layers as disqualifying for PP film recycling.

Uncoated rPET is one polymer, but that does not make it recyclable in practice. PET recycling systems are built for bottles and packaging, not textile bags, and fibre made from recycled textiles is under 1% of all fibre produced worldwide. An uncoated bag with PET thread and PET handles is the best starting point for a future recycling route. Some polyester textiles can already be chemically recycled, but no collection route reaches enough consumers to call the bag recyclable today.

What the law says about “recyclable”. In the US, the FTC Green Guides (16 CFR 260.12) allow an unqualified “recyclable” claim only where recycling facilities are available to at least 60% of the consumers where the product is sold, and they say a recyclable claim is deceptive if a component significantly limits the ability to recycle the item. Their own example of a bonded multi-layer package makes “includes some recyclable material” deceptive. In California, SB 343 restricts recyclability claims and the chasing arrows on products manufactured from 4 October 2026. In the EU, Directive (EU) 2024/825 treats a misleading recyclability claim as an unfair commercial practice. For an rPET bag of either kind, do not say recyclable.

So choose the construction for the job. If recycled content leads your programme, specify uncoated rPET with PET thread and PET webbing, no bottom board, and sublimation or screen print. That gives the highest recycled share and a single polymer. If print quality and water resistance lead, laminate, state the lower recycled share, and say plainly that the bag is hard to recycle. Both are legitimate. The mistake is ordering one and marketing the other.

7. How to read a GRS transaction certificate for an rPET order

A GRS transaction certificate (TC) covers one or more shipments from one certified seller to one buyer. For an rPET order, read five things: the material code, which tells you post-consumer or pre-consumer; the certified weight against the net shipping weight, which tells you how much of the bag is certified; the declared origin, which tells you where the waste was collected; the input references, which link your order up the chain; and any feedstock field, which is the only certified field where bottles can appear.

If the difference between a scope certificate and a transaction certificate is new to you, start with our GRS certification guide. This section assumes you have the TC in front of you.

A note on box numbers. The box numbers below follow the layout most certificates use in 2026. Textile Exchange’s new certificate policy takes effect on 1 October 2026 and becomes mandatory on 1 April 2027. The new layout renumbers the boxes, drops gross shipping weight, renames label grade to claims category, moves declared origin into the product details, and adds feedstock and traceability fields. The logic below stays the same.

An illustrated example

The figures below are invented for illustration, in the layout Textile Exchange certificates use. They describe a laminated rPET shopping bag order with PP webbing handles, so its certified share is lower than the bag in section 6.

Now read it the way an auditor would.

“100%” describes the fabric, not the bag. The composition line says the fabric is 100% recycled post-consumer polyester, and that is true. Net shipping weight is everything in the shipment except packaging, including the parts of the bag that are not certified. Certified weight counts only certified material. Supplementary weight holds the rest: here the film, the handles and the thread. By weight, this bag is 45% certified recycled material. A certified weight well below the net weight is normal for a bag with handles and lamination. It is not a red flag. Printing “100% recycled” about the whole bag would be.

RM0189 means post-consumer. RM0189 is Textile Exchange’s code for recycled post-consumer polyester. RM0188 is pre-consumer. You may also see RM0197, recycled post-consumer PET. None of these names says bottles.

The declared origin is where the waste was collected. For GRS, Box 11 is taken from the Reclaimed Material Declaration: for post-consumer material, the location where it was collected. It is not where the fibre, the fabric or the bag was made. A bag sewn in Vietnam can carry recycled polyester collected in China, and a certificate that shows exactly that is normal.

Look for a feedstock field. Where it exists, it sits in the product details or additional information. PD0094 means reclaimed bottles. On a 2026 certificate it will usually be absent, which proves nothing (section 3).

The certificate arrived five months after the goods. The seller applies for the TC, not the buyer. Under the current policy the certification body must issue it if a complete application arrives within 90 days of the earliest shipment date, and may issue it up to 180 days. Under the new policy, effective from 1 October 2026 and mandatory from 1 April 2027, the “must” window becomes 180 days. Under both policies, a certificate for finished products such as bags may be issued up to 365 days after shipment in some cases. Your bags may be on shelf before the TC exists. That is why the TC belongs in the purchase order as a condition, not in a follow-up email.

Box 7 does not give you the logo. Every TC states that it does not entitle the buyer to use the GRS logo or refer to GRS. Labelling rules sit in Textile Exchange’s Standards Claims Policy. See section 8.

Box 8 is your route upstream. The input TC numbers link your shipment to the certificates issued to the supplier’s own suppliers, often by a different certification body. Walked all the way back, the chain ends at the recycler’s Reclaimed Material Declaration, which is where the feedstock is declared. Textile Exchange keeps the parties behind a TC number confidential, so going upstream needs your supplier’s cooperation. Make that cooperation a condition in the purchase order, next to the transaction certificate.

Box 12 tells you whether production was subcontracted. Anything else a seller writes in its own declarations box is not verified by the certification body. A bottle claim that appears only there is the seller’s word, not the certifier’s.

Checks to run on every rPET TC

1. Authenticate it on Textile Exchange’s Authenticate a Transaction page, or through the URL or QR code on the certificate.
2. Check the title. The document should be called a Transaction Certificate, not a product certificate or an export certificate.
3. Match the parties. Seller and buyer should match your invoice and purchase order.
4. Match the shipment. Invoice references, units and weights should reconcile with your own packing list.
5. Check the seller’s scope certificate in Box 2 was valid on the shipment date and lists bags, or the product category on your TC, and recycled polyester.
6. Read the material code. RM0189 or RM0197 for post-consumer. RM0187, “recycled pre/post-consumer polyester”, is not a GRS certified material. Codes marked VR2 mean a mass balance system, where recycled content is accounted for rather than physically traced.
7. Do the weight arithmetic. Certified weight divided by net shipping weight. If supplementary weight is zero on a bag with visible PP handles or film, or the certified share is higher than the bag could physically contain, ask why.
8. Check the label grade. “GRS” is the grade a GRS label claim needs. “GRS (no label)” means 20% to under 50% recycled content, and no label.

8. Is an rPET bag eco-friendly? What you can print on the bag

Do not call it eco-friendly. Say what it is: a reusable bag, made with a stated percentage of recycled material, which is hard to recycle, and harder still if it is laminated. That is also the wording the EU, US and UK rules below leave open.

Why “eco-friendly” does not work

EU. Directive (EU) 2024/825 applies from 27 September 2026. Its recitals name “eco-friendly”, “green” and “environmentally friendly” as generic environmental claims. Annex I blacklists a generic claim unless the trader can demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim, which in practice means the EU Ecolabel or an officially recognised ecolabel. It also blacklists an environmental claim about the entire product when it concerns only a certain aspect of it. A clear specification next to the word stops a claim being generic, but the whole claim must still be true, and on a bag that is 59% recycled and hard to recycle, “eco-friendly” is still likely to mislead. The directive protects consumers, so it bites on the words your customers print and post. Those words usually start as ours.

US. The FTC Green Guides (16 CFR 260.4) say marketers should not make unqualified general environmental benefit claims. The FTC’s own example says “Eco-friendly: made with recycled materials” would not be deceptive if, among other conditions, the entire product, apart from minor, incidental components, is made from recycled material. A bag that is 59% recycled does not meet that condition.

UK. The Competition and Markets Authority’s Green Claims Code warns against leaving out important information, and gives a product glued from two materials, hard to dispose of except in general waste, as an example that needs clear messaging. Since April 2025 the CMA can fine directly.

The three claims that are true

1. Reusable. This is where an rPET bag earns its environmental case, and it has a threshold. The Danish Environmental Protection Agency’s 2018 life-cycle study of grocery bags found that a recycled PET bag had to be reused 8 times to match the study’s average LDPE carrier bag, itself reused once as a bin bag, on climate impact, and 84 times to match it on every impact category. The study’s rPET bag weighed 159 g, against 93 g for the bag in section 6. It assumed the bag would be recycled at the end of its life, and it did not model a laminated bag. Keep a load or durability test for the finished bag on file to back the word “reusable”.

2. Made with recycled material, with the percentage. “Made with 59% recycled material by weight. The fabric is recycled PET; the film, bonding layer, thread and label are not.” For a laminated bag, avoid “59% recycled polyester” on its own, because it reads as 59% of the polyester and hides the 41% that is polypropylene film, polypropylene bonding layer, thread and label.

3. Hard to recycle. “Laminated with a polypropylene film for print and water resistance. PET and polypropylene are bonded together, so this bag is hard to recycle.”

GRS claims

A GRS claim must always state a percentage, apply either to the whole product by weight or to a named component, carry the claim maker’s licence number and certification body, and have its artwork approved by that certification body. The GRS label needs at least 50% recycled content in the product or the claimed component.

For the bag in section 7, two claims are supportable, and only one of them is a GRS claim:

• Whole product, your own claim: made with 45% recycled post-consumer polyester by weight. It cannot use the GRS name or logo: the bag as a whole is below the 50% GRS threshold, and the certificate records the recycled content by component.
• Named component, GRS claim: fabric contains 100% GRS certified recycled polyester, certified by [certification body] [licence number], excluding handles, lamination and thread.

What is not supportable is “100% recycled bag”.

Who can put a GRS claim on the bag. Under Textile Exchange’s Standards Claims Policy, an on-product GRS claim can only be applied by a certified organization, and for a final product sold to consumers, certification is required up to the brand. If the bag carries your brand, your company needs its own GRS scope certificate to make the claim, the claim carries your licence number and certification body, and that certification body approves the artwork before it is printed. A retailer that is not certified cannot add a GRS claim to a product. If a certified company sells blank bags that an uncertified company then prints, the claim has to state that further printing was not confirmed to meet the requirements of the GRS. Settle which route applies with your supplier and your certification body before production, not after the TC arrives.

Post-consumer on the label. The word “post-consumer” can be added to a GRS claim only where the certification body has confirmed it and it appears on the scope certificate.

“Made from recycled bottles” is not a Textile Exchange claim format at all. It is your own claim, and it needs its own evidence, as section 3 explains.

Carbon claims. Leave them off the bag. Published figures for rPET versus virgin polyester vary widely with the system boundary and the allocation method, and Textile Exchange’s own 2026 polyester life-cycle study states that its data should not be used for public or marketing claims or for comparisons between materials.

Price. The old rule that rPET always costs more is not reliable. In China, recycled polyester staple fibre traded below virgin through August 2026 as oil prices pushed virgin up. Certified, white or filament grades can still carry a premium. Ask for a virgin and an rPET quotation on the same spec before you assume the recycled one costs more.

GRS is being replaced

Textile Exchange published GRS 5.0 in July 2026, a narrow revision built around the new Reclaimed Material Declaration, mandatory from 31 December 2026. GRS itself is being replaced by the Materials Matter Standard, effective 31 December 2026 and mandatory from 31 December 2027. Under the new claims policy, the minimum recycled content for a final-product claim on polyester drops to 30%, and that policy becomes mandatory on 30 June 2029. GRS certificates stay valid through the transition. For an order placed in 2026 or 2027, the reading in section 7 still applies.

9. Custom rPET bags from Bk-bags

Bk-bags supplies 11 rPET models in its rPET range: uncoated stitchbond at 85 and 100 g/m², white spunbond at 90 g/m² with sublimation, and laminated rPET from 110 to 140 g/m². MOQ is 10,000 pieces, produced in Vietnam and China.

Sizes on the product pages are for reference. Every model can be re-specified: material, weight, lamination, print method, handle material and construction. If your claim needs a single-polymer bag, we will tell you which components have to change and what that does to the price.

Our GRS scope certificate is published in full in our GRS certification guide. For a GRS rPET order, the transaction certificate for your shipment is available on request. Ask for it in the purchase order.

10. Twenty-five questions to ask an rPET bag manufacturer or supplier

Copy this into your next RFQ. Our own answers on samples, lead times and payment terms are in our reusable bag FAQ.

Material

1. Is the fabric spunbond or stitchbond, is it uncoated or laminated, and in which country was it made? Please state it in writing.
2. What is the polymer of the base fabric: PET or PP?
3. What is the fabric weight in g/m², and is that the base fabric or the laminated total?
4. If laminated: what is the film, what does it weigh, and is it recycled?
5. If stitchbond: what is the stitching yarn made of, and is it recycled?
6. What are the handles, thread, zips and bottom board made of?
7. Is the recycled polyester post-consumer or pre-consumer?
8. If pre-consumer: what is the waste stream, and why could it not go back into its original process?

Certification and claims

1. Can you name the certification body and the scope certificate number that will cover this order?
2. Will you apply for a transaction certificate for this shipment, and when will I receive it?
3. What certified weight do you expect the TC to show against the net shipping weight?
4. What recycled content percentage of the finished bag, by weight, can I claim?
5. Can the feedstock code be carried through to my transaction certificate? If not, what upstream evidence can you share for a bottle claim?
6. Will the label grade be GRS or GRS (no label)? If I want a GRS claim on the bag, which certification route applies to my brand?
7. Is any production step subcontracted?

Printing

1. Which print method, and is it applied to the fabric, the film or the finished bag?
2. If sublimation: confirm a PET base, a white or light face and no coating on the print side.
3. If screen printing on dyed rPET: which low-bleed ink system do you use?
4. How many colours are included, and are they Pantone matched?
5. Can I see a print sample on the actual production fabric?

Construction and approval

1. What is the tested load capacity of the finished bag, and by what method?
2. How are the handles attached: bar tack or X-box stitch?
3. Can you send a pre-production sample from the bulk rPET roll, not a sample-room substitute?
4. Confirm the MOQ, and whether it is per order, per colour or per size.
5. Confirm the lead time from artwork approval, not from order date.

“The question I get most is whether our rPET is really from bottles. It almost always is. The better question is how much of the bag is certified. On a bag with polypropylene handles or a laminated film, that number is well below the one on the fabric, and it is the number a whole-bag claim has to use. Put the transaction certificate in the purchase order, and read the weights before you read the percentage.” Simmy Lin, Managing Director, Bk-bags

FAQ

What is the difference between rPET and recycled polyester? There is none at the level of the material. rPET is recycled polyethylene terephthalate, and polyethylene terephthalate is the polymer polyester is made from. The bag industry tends to say rPET and GRS certificates say recycled polyester. What distinguishes one rPET product from another is the feedstock, the fabric construction and the certification behind it. Bk-bags states the fabric type, spunbond or stitchbond, uncoated or laminated, and the certificate that will cover the order on every rPET quotation.

Are rPET bags made from plastic bottles? Almost always. Textile Exchange reports that 98% of recycled polyester is made from PET bottles, with the rest coming from other packaging, manufacturing waste and a small amount of textiles. A GRS transaction certificate records the material as recycled post-consumer or pre-consumer polyester, not as bottles. Bottles appear only in a feedstock code, PD0094, which the recycler declares and which reaches your certificate only when every certificate in the chain carries it. A “made from bottles” claim therefore needs its own evidence. Bk-bags confirms with the buyer before the order what upstream evidence the certificate chain can provide.

What is the difference between rPET spunbond and stitchbond non-woven bags? Spunbond is made from continuous filaments bonded by heat, usually with a visible dot or diamond emboss, and feels crisp and slightly papery. Stitchbond is a web of staple fibres held together by a yarn stitched through it, with visible parallel stitch lines and a softer, more fabric-like feel. Both are non-woven. Bk-bags supplies uncoated rPET stitchbond bags at 85 and 100 g/m² and a white rPET spunbond bag at 90 g/m². The 100 g/m² stitchbond and the 90 g/m² spunbond are printed by sublimation.

Can you sublimation print on rPET non-woven? Yes, when the fabric is PET, white or light in colour, and uncoated on the print face. Sublimation does not work on PP non-woven, which melts at around 160 °C and does not take sublimation dyes, and it does not work through a laminated film. Bk-bags uses sublimation on its white 90 g/m² spunbond and 100 g/m² uncoated stitchbond bags, and screen printing, heat transfer or lamination on the rest of the range.

Is a laminated rPET bag still recycled? The rPET fabric is recycled, but the bag is not 100% recycled. On a 140 g/m² laminated rPET bag, 85 g/m² is rPET fabric and 55 g/m² is polypropylene film and a polypropylene bonding layer, neither of them recycled. Worked out component by component, a 93 g customised laminated shopping bag we produced for a client is 59% recycled material by weight. The fabric line on its transaction certificate can still read 100%, because it describes the fabric, not the bag.

Can rPET bags be recycled? Not in practice today. A laminated rPET bag bonds polypropylene to PET, and we found no commercial process that separates the two. The main design-for-recycling guides, written for packaging, treat PET layers in polypropylene film as non-recyclable. An uncoated rPET bag is a single polymer, but PET recycling systems are built for bottles and packaging, and fibre from recycled textiles is under 1% of all fibre produced. Under the FTC Green Guides and California SB 343, neither kind should be called recyclable. Bk-bags advises buyers to describe both as hard to recycle, and laminated bags as harder.

Can I call an rPET bag eco-friendly? Not on its own. From 27 September 2026, Directive (EU) 2024/825 bans generic claims such as “eco-friendly” in consumer marketing unless the product holds the EU Ecolabel or an officially recognised ecolabel, and the US FTC treats an unqualified “eco-friendly” claim as deceptive. Describe what is true instead: a reusable bag, made with a stated percentage of recycled material by weight, and hard to recycle, harder still if it is laminated. Bk-bags recommends that wording to buyers.

How do I know if my rPET bag is post-consumer or pre-consumer? Read the material composition on the GRS transaction certificate for your shipment. Recycled post-consumer polyester carries the code RM0189, and recycled pre-consumer polyester carries RM0188. Recycled post-consumer PET, RM0197, may also appear. The declared origin box shows where the recycled waste was collected, not where the bag was made. Authenticate the certificate on Textile Exchange’s website before relying on it. Bk-bags provides the transaction certificate for a GRS rPET order on request.

Why does my transaction certificate show less certified weight than the shipment weight? Because the certified weight counts only the certified recycled material. Components that are not certified, such as lamination film, polypropylene handles, thread and bottom boards, are recorded as supplementary weight. Net shipping weight includes those parts, and excludes only packaging. A bag whose fabric is 100% recycled polyester can therefore be under half certified material by weight, and that is normal. The claim on the bag should either state the percentage of the whole bag by weight or name the component it covers. Bk-bags agrees the claim wording with the buyer before production.

Can I put the GRS logo on my rPET bags? Only if the claim meets Textile Exchange’s rules. The product or the claimed component needs at least 50% recycled content, the claim must state the percentage, and for a final product sold to consumers certification is required up to the brand, so a brand that is not GRS certified cannot put a GRS claim on its own bags. The transaction certificate alone does not give the buyer the right to use the logo. Without certification, a brand can still make its own specific recycled-content claim backed by the certificate. Bk-bags confirms which claim route applies before production.

Can I test a bag in a laboratory to prove it is recycled? Not reliably. Recycled and virgin PET are the same polymer, and a 2022 study of 20 commercial rPET samples found that their material properties could not separate them from virgin PET. Tracer technologies can confirm a fabric contains fibre tagged at a specific production step, but not what went into that step. Recycled content is proven by chain of custody, which is why Bk-bags provides a transaction certificate for GRS rPET orders on request.

What is the minimum order quantity for custom rPET bags? Bk-bags supplies custom rPET bags at a minimum order quantity of 10,000 pieces. That covers every model in the range, stitchbond, spunbond, uncoated and laminated rPET, and every print method: screen printing, heat transfer, lamination, and sublimation on the white spunbond and 100 g/m² stitchbond bags. Production is in Vietnam and China, so the order can be placed where the buyer’s tariff position and lead time work best.

About the author

Simmy Lin is Managing Director at Bk-bags, a supplier and developer of reusable shopping bags and e-commerce packaging with production in Vietnam and China. Bk-bags has been developing and supplying reusable bags for retail clients worldwide since 2006, and holds GRS and FSC® chain-of-custody certificates (FSC® C232146) and is BSCI audited.

Send us your spec, or send us the rPET bag you use now. We will tell you what it is made of, what its certificate should say, and what you can print on it.

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Sources: Textile Exchange, Materials Market Report 2024 and 2025; Textile Exchange, Polyester LCA Technical Report (June 2026); Textile Exchange, GRS 4.2 Implementation Manual, GRS-101 V5.0, GRS-202 V2.0 Guide to Recycled Materials, ASR-104 V3.1 Policy for Transaction Certificates, TE-TXL-POL-203 V4.0 Policy for Scope and Transaction Certificates, ASR-213 V1.3 Materials, Processes and Products Classification, TE-301 V1.4 Standards Claims Policy, TE-MM-POL-301 V1.0 Materials Matter Claims and Labeling Policy, Calibrations Log V2026.3; Eunomia for Petcore Europe, PET Market in Europe: State of Play (2024); European Commission, EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, COM(2022) 141; Celik et al., Polymers (2022); EDANA nonwovens glossary; Reifenhäuser, Products from Recyclates; US FTC Green Guides, 16 CFR 260.4, 260.12 and 260.13; California SB 343; Directive (EU) 2024/825; UK CMA Green Claims Code; Danish EPA, Life Cycle Assessment of Grocery Carrier Bags (2018); APR Design Guide for Plastics Recyclability; RecyClass Design for Recycling Guidelines (2026); UN Comtrade (Vietnam imports, 2023); General Department of Vietnam Customs via VnBusiness (October 2024); China Chemical Fibers Association via People’s Daily (April 2026); Century Synthetic Fiber Corporation 2025 results via The Investor (April 2026); UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.