Proving Recycled Polyester Content: How Do You Do It?

What Claim Is Actually Being Made?

A recycled content claim says that a stated proportion of the input to this product came from recovered material. It is a claim about a chain of custody, not about the polymer, and the finished article can be chemically identical whether the claim is true or not. That is exactly why the evidence is documentary rather than laboratory, and why no test reports a recycled percentage.

What Is a Transaction Certificate?

A document issued by a recognised certification body for one shipment of goods, naming the seller, the buyer, the product, the quantity, the input percentage and the certificate number it was issued against. It is the instrument that moves a claim down the chain, and it is the only thing a buyer should accept as evidence of recycled content on a delivery.

When Is It Issued and by Whom?

It is issued after the goods covered by it have been shipped, and it is issued to the party that sold them, not to the party that bought them. That direction matters: if the finished goods were bought from a supplier, the certificate is issued to that supplier and has to be passed down. A buyer who expects one to arrive addressed to them has misunderstood the flow.

How Is the Percentage Read?

The certificate states the proportion of certified input in the goods it covers, and that figure is what may be claimed. A certificate stating a proportion below the whole means the claim on the product has to state the same proportion or lower, not a rounded whole. Reading the figure up is the single most common error and the one most easily checked by anyone.

Why Does a Certificate for the Cloth Not Cover the Bag?

Because the claim attaches to a shipment, not to a material. A certificate held for the fabric covers that fabric; the bag made from it needs its own certificate issued for the bag. This is the point at which most programmes discover the gap, and it is the reason the request has to be made at the order for finished goods rather than at the material order.

What Is Scope Certification?

It is the certification of a site for the activities it performs: trading, storage, spinning, weaving, dyeing, assembly or finishing. Every party that handles certified input has to hold scope for the activity it actually performs. A scope certificate on its own carries no claim, but without one in the right place the chain breaks and no transaction certificate can be issued at the end of it.

How Does the Chain Break?

In three places, mostly. A party in the chain that has let its scope lapse or holds it for the wrong activity. A quantity mismatch, where more certified goods are sold than were bought in. And a product that was processed by an uncertified party in the middle, which is invisible from the documents at either end. Each is preventable by checking the chain before it matters.

What Should Be Requested From the Supplier?

A transaction certificate for the finished goods, issued by a recognised certification body, referencing the invoice, and showing the input percentage. Ask for it in the purchase order rather than after delivery, because a certificate requested afterwards takes as long to obtain as it would have done before, and it arrives when nobody can act on it.

When Should It Be Requested?

At the time the order is placed, with the timing written into the schedule. The certificate is issued after the goods ship, so it arrives after the goods, and any activity that depends on it has to be planned around that. A claim printed onto packaging before the certificate is in hand is a claim made without evidence, whatever eventually arrives.

What Happens When It Arrives After Shipment?

That is the normal order of events, and it is not a problem unless something downstream needed it first. The problem case is a retailer listing deadline, a printed carton or a product page that has to go live on a date. Work back from that date, add the time it takes a certification body to issue, and you have the date the order had to be placed by.

How Do Input Sources Differ in Weight?

Two categories are recognised and they are not equivalent in the market. Material recovered after use by a consumer carries more weight with most retailers and most regulators than material recovered from a factory before it ever reached one. A certificate will normally distinguish them, and a claim that blurs the two is the kind that gets challenged.

What Do Post-Consumer and Pre-Consumer Mean?

Post-consumer input has completed its life as a product and been recovered from the waste stream. Pre-consumer input has been diverted from a factory before reaching a consumer. Both are genuine recovered material and both can be certified, but they are different claims and they should be stated separately rather than combined into one number.

How Should a Claim Be Worded on the Product?

State the proportion, name the basis, and do not imply more than the certificate supports. A figure with the standard named behind it is a defensible claim. A word with no figure behind it is the kind that attracts a challenge, because it says something the document cannot support if anyone asks.

What Do Marketing Rules Require of a Claim?

The general rule across most markets is that an environmental claim has to be substantiated, specific and not overstate its scope. In practice that means a figure, a basis, and no implication that the whole article is recovered material when only part of it is. The guidance published by the main consumer protection regulators is consistent on all three.

What Happens If It Cannot Be Evidenced?

The claim has to come off the product, and in most markets the cost of doing that after printing falls on whoever put it there. The exposure is not limited to one listing: a claim that cannot be substantiated invites a review of every other claim on the same product, and sometimes of the whole range.

How Is a Certificate Checked for Authenticity?

By the certificate number against the issuing body, by the quantity against the invoice, by the product description against what arrived, and by the dates against the shipment. Four checks, each one quick. A certificate is a document and can be wrong, so it is worth reading rather than filing.

What Records Should Be Kept for Audit?

The transaction certificate, the invoice it references, the scope certificate of the party that issued it, and the calculation that connects the certified input to the quantity sold. Keep them for the period the market requires, and keep them together, because an audit asks for all four and usually asks for them at short notice.

What Does Evidence Cost and Who Pays?

The cost is a certification charge per certificate plus the administrative work of keeping the chain intact, and it is normally borne by whoever is selling the goods at the point the certificate is issued. On a 500-piece order that charge is a real line, and it needs to be in the price rather than discovered later.

How Do Claims Interact With Chemical Compliance?

They are separate questions and they are often confused. A chain of custody document says nothing about which substances are present, and a restricted substance report says nothing about where the input came from. A finished article normally needs both, and a certificate is not a substitute for a substance declaration.

What Should Be Written Into the Purchase Clause?

The standard, the minimum input percentage, the requirement for a transaction certificate on the finished goods, the issuing body, the invoice it must reference, and the timing. Six items. Written in that order, the clause also tells the reader what to check when the certificate arrives.

• Request the certificate at the order for the finished goods, not for the material.
• State the required input percentage as a minimum figure.
• Confirm scope for every party in the chain, including subcontractors.
• Require the certificate to reference the invoice it covers.
• Plan the issue time into the schedule before any claim is printed.
• Read the percentage as stated, and claim that figure or lower.
• Keep the certificate, the invoice and the scope together for audit.

How Is It Reconciled Against the Invoice?

Match the product description, the quantity and the parties on both documents. A certificate covering a different quantity than the invoice is a partial cover, and it means the claim can be made only on the quantity it does cover, not on the shipment as a whole.

What Should a Retailer Submission Contain?

The certificate, the invoice it references, the product description it covers and the calculation linking the certified input to the quantity being sold. Most retailer portals ask for those four and little else. Assembling them at the time of shipment is straightforward; assembling them a year later is not, because the parties have moved on.

How Does a Partial Claim Work?

When only part of a shipment is covered by a certificate, the claim applies to that part and not to the rest. In practice the cleanest handling is to keep the covered quantity as a separate line on the paperwork, so the two are never mixed. Mixing them makes the whole shipment hard to sell to anyone who checks.

What Should Be Agreed Before the Order Is Placed?

The standard, the minimum input percentage, who requests the certificate, who pays for it and when it has to be in hand. Five items, and the fifth is the one that decides whether the claim can be used at all. Agreeing all five at the order removes nearly every dispute that otherwise arrives with the goods.

• Name the standard so every party is working to the same chain of custody.
• State the minimum percentage as a figure rather than a description.
• Say who requests the certificate and who pays the issuing charge.
• Set the date it has to be in hand, working back from the claim going live.
• Record all of it on the purchase order rather than in correspondence.

What Should Be Reviewed Each Season?

The scope expiry dates of every party in the chain, the input percentage being achieved, and whether the certificate timing still fits the schedule. Three standing checks, and they are the ones that keep a claim available rather than theoretical.

Treat the certificate as one of the deliverables of the order, in the same way as the goods and the inspection report. Orders that list it among the deliverables get it; orders that mention it in an email usually have to ask twice.

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