Recycled polyester (rPET)

Recycled polyester (rPET) is usually made from clear plastic bottles, melted and re-spun into fiber. That displaces virgin oil feedstock and cuts production emissions meaningfully — a genuine improvement.

What it does not change: the finished fiber is chemically identical to virgin polyester. It sheds the same microfibers, will not biodegrade, and — since fiber-to-fiber recycling barely exists at scale — is typically the last use of that plastic before landfill.

rPET scores 100/100, the same as virgin polyester, because in a washing machine it behaves identically. Plastfri detects the “recycled” claim and notes it separately so you can weigh the better feedstock yourself.

The same weight applies everywhere: a product's score is the percentage-weighted plastic share of its listed fiber composition, and every weight is public.