PET is PET – until regulation says otherwise. Under EU food-contact rules, two chemically identical PET items can have very different recycling futures: one qualifies for food-grade use, the other does not. Conventional NIR sorting cannot tell them apart. With the PPWR applying from August 2026 and mandatory recycled-content targets from 2030, the ability to sort by regulatory status is becoming a practical requirement for recyclers handling PET. In this talk, Andreas Jäger explains how sensor fusion and AI-based sorting make it possible to distinguish PET by its prior use history, not just its material composition. He draws on the Cirrec project in the Netherlands, where 60,000 tonnes of post-consumer PET trays per year are being processed into food-grade material at industrial scale, and discusses what this shift means for recyclers, brand owners, and closed-loop packaging systems.