Ten billion bottles: Indorama ignites European rPET capacity with plant investments

02 Dec 2020 --- Indorama Ventures, a global petrochemical company and the world’s largest producer of PET resin, has announced that by 2023 it will be recycling nearly ten billion post-consumer PET bottles in Europe alone. 

The announcement comes following a US$1.5 billion investment made by the Thailand-based company last year in its global recycling facilities. It aims to achieve production of 750 million metric tons of recycled PET (rPET) per year worldwide with the investments.

As part of its European plans, Indorama will be opening a new facility in France and expanding two existing Polish sites. 

Speaking to PackagingInsights, François Lagrue, head of operations at Indorama’s European recycling group, says the plans result from customer demand and the moves would not have been possible without pressure from beverage producers and their consumers. 

“Recyclers like Indorama now know there will be a market for their recycled product and can invest in expansion to meet the demand.” 

“This is because in 2018, members of the Union of European Soft Drinks Associations (UNESDA) including Suntory, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, committed to using a minimum of 25 percent [rPET] content in their bottles.” 

“As a result, investment in recycling has been de-risked,” asserts Lagrue. 

Europe going circular
The Polish plants, acquired in October, will convert washed and shredded post-consumer bottles to rPET flake feedstock for food contact packaging material. 

The input tonnage available on the sites is equivalent to 9.8 billion post-consumer bottles. 

Nicholas Hodac, director-general of UNESDA, says, “We welcome this investment in Europe’s circular economy. Europe’s soft drinks industry is working hard to drive sustainability throughout its value chain – from sourcing, production and distribution through to packaging, collection, recycling and reuse.” 

“This investment is another proof point that circularity works in Europe. By delivering a closed-loop system, we ensure that valuable secondary raw material is not wasted, and we achieve a well-functioning EU market.”

Indorama’s new facilities in France and Poland will enable 9.8 billion plastic bottles to be recycled per year.Government intervention
Lagrue is encouraging governments and policymakers to improve public awareness of recycling’s importance and ensure access to it is made easy. 

“Collection systems can still be improved. Governments can support better awareness that fully recyclable packaging should be disposed of correctly.”

Since 2011, Indorama has recycled close to 57 billion PET bottles. It maintains recycling systems in the US, Europe and Asia. 

UNESDA has set ambitious plans for 2025, by which time it intends to make 100 percent of Europe’s plastic bottles fully recyclable and improve collection sites throughout the continent. 

It is also working to create a secondary raw material market to make food-grade rPET available and affordable. 

In addition, UNESDA says it supports return and reuse schemes where feasible. 

Reuse over recycling? 
While the large capacity of Indorama’s new systems appears impressive, activists say the focus on recycling may be misguided. 

Speaking to PackagingInsights, Larissa Copello, consumption and production campaigner at Zero Waste Europe, says the developments are insufficient. 

“While improving and expanding existing infrastructure for recycling is necessary, recycling is not enough to deal with the current (and massive) flow of packaging waste.”

“The only way to address packaging waste generation is through the adoption of upstream solutions, such as reuse and refill systems, that prevent packaging waste from happening in the first place.”

Copello says where organizations like UNESDA have nodded toward reuse schemes “where it makes environmental and economic sense,” these schemes should be prioritized and made the primary method of plastic waste management. 

“While beverage companies have acknowledged the need to have deposit-return systems (DRS) to increase and improve their recycling capacity and quality, DRS is effective in ensuring the reuse and refill of packaging, especially in the beverage sector.” 

“As such, and in line with the waste hierarchy, beverage companies should primarily focus on prevention and reuse, and not only on recycling,” concludes Copello. 

By Louis Gore-Langton