Indorama Ventures Hits Landmark Of Recycling 1bn PET Bottles
Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited, a global sustainable chemical company has recycled 100 billion post-consumer PET bottles since February 2011.
“This has diverted 2.1 million tons of waste from the environment and saved 2.9 million tons of carbon footprint from the product lifecycles,” the Thailand headquartered company said in a press release.
Demonstrating its commitment to support the establishment of a circular economy, in the last ten years Indorama Ventures said it has spent more than $1 billion towards waste collection of used PET bottles.
“As we mark the recycling of 100 billion PET bottles, we want to thank global brand owners for using recyclable and recycled packaging while also increasing collection rates,” CEO Aloke Lohia said.
“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,” he added
“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,” Lohia stated.
The company has also committed a further $1.5 billion to expand its recycling business and to do so, has expanded its recycling facilities, infrastructure, and public education programs.
The unique PET plastic used in soft drinks and water bottles is fully recyclable and is collected in practice and at scale.
As a result, PET is the most recycled plastic in the world, and the company’s recycling achievements support that.
The company now has 20 recycling sites in Asia, the Americas, and Europe. Recent developments include doubling the capacity of a recycling site in Brazil.
It also opened PETValue, the largest bottle-to-bottle recycling facility in the Philippines, in partnership with Coca-Cola.
Both are part of a $300 million ‘Blue Loan’ Indorama Ventures received in 2020 from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank, and Asian Development Bank.
The loan has the objective of increasing recycling capacity and diverting plastic waste from landfills and oceans in Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, India, and Brazil.
The company has also partnered with the Yunus Foundation, a non-profit organisation with the goal of educating one million consumers globally about recycling by 2030, with 200,000 reached so far.
