Page 68 - Plastics News December 2019

FEAturEs

Report boasts blueprint for circularity

Claimed to be the first of its kind to provide a systematic and comparable baseline of the flow of plastics pack-
aging by studying PET bottles in countries

aking a PET bottle coloured instead of clear reduces to pull the material through
Mits value in the South-east Asian recycling market the value chain (i.e. increase
by $84 a tonne, reports Singapore-based environmental demand of PET bottles
consultancy GA Circular. The finding, which is the result through key stakeholders of
of two years of research, follows Coca-Cola’s recent the recycling value chain).
decision to move Sprite away from coloured PET in the PET bottle consumption
region. GA Circular studied the six biggest South-east Asian is projected to grow from
markets – Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, 886,000 tonnes in 2018 to 1.52 million tonnes in 2030.
Myanmar and Malaysia – and found that coloured PET GA Circular calls on companies and industry in South-east
was priced at 35 per cent lower than clear PET in the Asia to adopt voluntary Packaging Recovery Organisations
collection and recycling market. As a result, phasing out (PROs) focused on value creation mechanisms that benefit
of the use of coloured PET beverage packaging is a key the informal sector and the value chain, and material end
recommendation in the consultancy firm’s Full Circle: markets; and for governments to support with enabling
Accelerating the circular economy for post-consumer policies and standards for the circular economy. Similar
PET bottles in South-east Asia report launched together models have seen success in comparable developing
with Coca-Cola. The companies believe that the report countries such as South Africa and Mexico. PET bottle
provides a blueprint for circularity of PET bottles in the collection and recycling rates have increased to over 55
region. The report is claimed to be the first of its kind per cent in both countries. As of 2018, South Africa has a 68
to provide a systematic and comparable baseline of the per cent recycling rate for PET bottles, with 100 per cent
flow of plastics packaging by studying PET bottles in five of the material recycled locally. Ashwin Subramaniam,
of the six countries that are among the top ten global chief executive of GA Circular, said: “The report aims
contributors to ocean plastics leakage. At the city level, 54 to shed light on the current realities for post-consumer
per cent of PET bottles are collected-for-recycling in these packaging in South-east Asia. A realistic baseline is critical
six countries on average (based on nine representative in informing the direction and nature of solutions to be
cities). The collected-for-recycling rate is estimated to be implemented and this is what this report provides. A
26 per cent at the national level.Across the six countries, circular economy for PET packaging is perhaps 100 per
a total of 660,000 tonnes of PET bottles was landfilled or cent possible in the region."
leaked into the environment
in 2018. This represented a
loss in secondary material
value of $199 million per
year. The informal sector is
the backbone of collection
for PET bottles in these six
South-east Asian countries,
contributing to 97 per cent of
all PET collected-for-recycling
in the nine cities studied – and
thus any solutions for South-
east Asia must include the
informal sector.The report
highlights the need to boost
post-consumer value chain
by providing a price incentive

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