ALPLA Group (Hard, Austria) has opened a new plant for high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic recycling in Toluca, Mexico. At the same time, the company has announced it will double its annual regrind material production capacity to 30,000 tons in the second half of 2022.
Following the announcement of the plant’s construction in September 2020, it took a little more than a year for the work to be completed. The investment sum came to around 20 million euros. Around 70 new jobs have been created at the plant, which will be run as a wholly owned subsidiary of ALPLA.
The facility is currently designed for an annual capacity of 15,000 tons of recycled HDPE (rHDPE) in pellet form. This regranulate is mainly used for the production of non-food packaging such as personal care products and household cleaning agents. The demand for recycling material is so high in Mexico and Central America that the majority of the output will be used regionally.
The success of this strategy is evidenced by the fact that ALPLA can already announce an increase in the recycling plant’s annual production capacity to 30,000 tons starting in the second half of 2022.
Carlos Torres, Regional Manager Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, explains: ‘We are seeing increasing momentum in the recycling market, taking one step forward in our commitment to sustainability, and the demand from our customers in the region for post-consumer recycled materials is rising. This is enabling us to already initiate an increase in our production of rHDPE in Toluca.’