Indorama Ventures claims to have recycled 100 billion post-consumer PET bottles since February 2011, diverted 2.1 million tons of waste from the environment, and saved 2.9 million tons of carbon footprint from product life cycles.
Reportedly, the company has spent over $1 billion on collecting used PET bottles in the last ten years. It has now announced a further $1.5 billion investment into the expansion of its recycling business, with its recycling facilities, infrastructure, and public education programmes all growing in an effort to raise recycling rates across the world.
Indorama Ventures owns twenty recycling sites in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Recently, one of its recycling sites in Brazil has doubled its capacity; the company has also partnered with Coca-Cola to open PETValue, said to be the largest bottle-to-bottle recycling facility in the Philippines.
Both the developments stemmed from a $300 million ‘Blue Loan’ received in 2020 from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank. The loan is expected to help Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, and Brazil increase their recycling capacities and divert plastic waste from landfills and oceans.
The company has also partnered with the Yunus Foundation with the intention of educating one million consumers across the world about recycling by 2030. The current figure is said to stand at 200,000.
Moving forward, Indorama Ventures is looking into the development of advanced technologies in the global pursuit of upscaled recycling infrastructure and lower life cycle carbon emissions.
Aloke Lohia, founder and group CEO of Indorama Ventures, said: “As we mark the recycling of 100 billion PET bottles, we want to thank consumers for recycling, and global brand owners for using recyclable and recycled packaging while also increasing collection rates. The scale of the waste challenge requires us all to do more, faster.
“In March 2020, we announced achieving the milestone of 50 billion PET bottles recycled in nine years. Today we hit the 100 billion mark in three and a half years.
“By recycling post-consumer PET bottles into new bottles, we give waste an economic value. This drives improvements in waste collection systems, meaning less waste and a cleaner environment.
“In the last 10 years we have spent more than $1 billion towards waste collection systems for used PET bottles. We pledge to continue our long-term focus on circularity.
“Sustainability is at the core of our company. These achievements reflect our commitment to environmental sustainability and our determination to establish a truly circular economy for PET packaging. Reaching this milestone is a testament to our planet’s growing commitment to sustainability.
“Each of these bottles represents a reduction in waste, and a step towards a world where no packaging ends up as litter or waste. This milestone achievement shows the positive change that can occur when we work together to support PET recycling and strive for a more circular world.”
A grand opening for Swedish Plastic Recycling’s Site Zero plant site will take place next month. It hopes to usher in a ‘new era’ for plastics recycling in which no CO2 will be emitted.
Meanwhile, ALPLA is building a recycling plant in Ballito, South Africa, with an intended output of 35,000 tonnes of rPET flakes; and Elipso is calling for a single waste management system to roll out a mandatory deposit return scheme for plastic bottle recycling in France.
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