Indorama Ventures Ltd. (IVL; Bangkok, Thailand) announced the official opening of its PETValue bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in the Philippines, in partnership with Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines—the bottling arm of Coca-Cola in the country. The plant is IVL’s latest recycled PET (polyethylene terephthalate) facility as the global integrated petrochemicals company builds on its position as the world’s largest producer of recycled resin used in plastic beverage bottles.
PETValue Philippines, located in General Trias in Cavite Province south of Manila, is the country’s first food-grade, bottle-to-bottle recycling facility, and the largest in the Philippines. It was built by IVL in partnership with Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines, Inc. in accord with The Coca-Cola Company’s ‘World Without Waste’ program to collect and recycle the equivalent of every bottle it sells by 2030. As a result of the joint venture with Coca-Cola, IVL will recycle about 2 billion additional used PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottles in the Philippines every year and create about 200 new local jobs. The plant will wash and shred post-consumer bottles into flakes to produce recycled PET resin that is suitable for use in food-contact applications.
Managed under IVL’s regional business lead for Recycling Vertical Mr. Anivesh Tewari, PETValue brings together an experienced leadership team led by Site Manager Mr. Joel Potian, who has nearly three decades of manufacturing and chemical engineering expertise in the Philippines and Korea. He is supported by Mr. Aris Castillo as Chief Financial Officer, formerly from Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines with more than 10 years in supply chain finance and manufacturing.
Mr. Sanjay Ahuja, Executive President of Combined PET, Indorama Ventures, said, “PETValue is an important development for IVL, for our partner Coca-Cola, and for the Philippines community. IVL, as the largest producer of recycled PET resin, is bringing our global experience and know-how to grow capacity and recycle more bottles. This, together with our partner Coca-Cola’s powerful consumer footprint, represents significant potential for us, as purposeful companies, to close the loop on plastic bottle recycling and help resolve waste in the Philippines.”
IVL has already surpassed the half-way milestone towards meeting its 2025 target of increasing its recycling capacity to 750,000 tons per year. The company is investing $1.5 billion globally to expand recycling facilities and sustainable production, including a new ambition to reach post-consumer PET bale input of 1,500,000 tons per year by 2030.
PETValue will introduce the most advanced technology and infrastructure in the Philippines, helping to improve collection and recycling rates and prevent leakage into waterways. The new plant will encourage a more robust waste value chain to help address the growing post-consumer waste management problem in the Philippines. The unique PET plastic used in soft drinks and water bottles is 100% recyclable and the most collected plastic packaging in the world. Global brands including Coca-Cola are using more recycled plastic in their bottles to close the loop and deliver a circular economy.
Mr. Yash Lohia, Chairman of ESG Council at Indorama Ventures, said, “By the end of this year we will have increased our recycling capacity to more than 375,000 tons. In 2021, we acquired a PET recycling plant in Texas and announced plans to build a new facility in Indonesia. In 2020, we signed a joint venture agreement with Coca-Cola to build a state-of-the-art recycling plant in the Philippines, which culminated in today’s announcement. In the same year, we also acquired recycling plants in Brazil and two in Poland. This is to be celebrated given the challenging pandemic environment. These seven plants will join a family of existing recycling sites in Alabama, Ireland, two in France and the Netherlands.”
Mr. Gareth McGeown, President and CEO of Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines, Inc., said, “Sustainability is at the heart of who we are as a company, as evidenced by more than a century of Coca-Cola treating the Philippines as its home. We are extremely proud of PETValue Philippines and our partnership with Indorama Ventures, whose global expertise in recycling technologies will prove to be an asset to the Philippines’ collective goals for more sustainable practices and a truly circular economy for recyclable plastic packaging. It is through innovations like PETValue Philippines and the strong partnerships we’ve formed with like-minded entities like Indorama Ventures that Coca-Cola can continue serving Filipino communities for another hundred years.”