Bangkok--5 Oct--Hill+Knowlton Strategies
Thai Beverage Industry Association, The Coca-Cola system in Thailand and Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited have announced their collaboration to encourage the use of recyclable PET (rPET) in beverage packaging to help reduce the amount of virgin plastic used. The partnership aims to create a better understanding of recycling innovations and technology that provides hygienic and safe recycled PET for food and beverage packaging. At the same time correct information is being disseminated to help build confidence among the government sector and encouraging it to legalize the use of recycled PET in food and beverage packaging. It is believed that the eventual success of this project will help reduce plastic waste and ease the global environmental issues. This project is also consistent with the three organizations' commitment to social responsibility and promoting a sustainable environment.
Veera Akraputtiporn, Vice President of Thai Beverage Industry Association said: "In its position at the core of the cooperation among non-alcohol beverage industry, the association plays an important role in helping to solve the plastic waste problem that is affecting the environment. The association recently and successfully acted as the liaison between government and its members to stop using plastic cap seals on bottles. Today, thanks to the significant progress in recycling technology, it is safe to use recycled PET in the production of beverage and food packaging, widely used in many countries. Therefore, we would like to raise the awareness of the public in this regard. Coca-Cola is the main player in focusing attention on this issue, which is part of its global vision. For its part, Indorama Ventures is capable of producing recycled PET bottles but these can currently only be exported. If this regulation were to be revised, we are confident that more industries will be interested in this innovation because we are all committed to operating our businesses with full social responsibility."
Nuntivat Thamhatai, Public Affairs and Communications Director of Coca-Cola (Thailand) Limited said: "As the leading global beverage company that uses a lot of PET bottles for our beverage packaging, Coca-Cola has an important role to play in reducing plastic waste. The company announced the "World Without Waste" vison earlier this year as a global commitment, aspiring to create packaging that is at least 50% recycled material by 2030. The company must now start working toward this plan with our supplier, Indorama Ventures. We need to present our plan to the government in order to start building confidence and invite our industrial allies to move forward with this project with the support of the Association."
"The company has been consistently working to use PET packaging in a responsible way. One of our global commitments is to make all our primary consumer packaging 100-percent recyclable by 2025 which the Thai market has already achieved. Speaking of reducing use of plastic, we for a long time have had our beverages in returnable glass bottles that can be cleaned and refilled time and again. And, in 2012, we invested substantially in order to revamp our bottled water brand 'Namthip' and introduce special kind PET bottle, which reduces the amount of plastic used by 35 percent compared with the previous packaging. Together with that change, we also stopped using plastic cap seals – which was well before it became a big issue in Thailand recently ", Nuntivat added.
Thailand currently prohibits the use of recycled PET in food and beverage packaging. The Notification of the Ministry of Public Health (No. 295) B.E. 2548 (Y2005), Clause 8 states: "It is prohibited to use plastic containers made from re-used plastic with the exception of use for packing fruits with peel." The objective of this regulation was to protect consumers from unclean packaging, however, this has resulted in all PET packaging produced in Thailand being made from virgin plastic. This has resulted in high amounts of virgin PET packaging being improperly disposed of.
Mr. Richard Jones, Senior Vice President, Head Office HR, Corporate Communications, CSR & Sustainability, Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited said: "Indorama Ventures houses modern and hygienic technology to convert recycled PET bottles into rPET pellets which meets the standards set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Commission Regulations. The level of hygiene and safety in all our products is of paramount importance. In the first instance, all used plastic bottles are sorted to separate impure materials like labels and closures. The bottles then go through a rigorous cleansing process involving thermal processing for sterilization to eliminate germs and dangerous contaminants. The plastic is then shredded into small flakes and melted at temperatures exceeding 285 degrees Celsius to produce the highest quality recycled PET. Plastic bottles produced from recycled PET by Indorama Ventures' plant are well accepted at both the national and international levels. Indorama Ventures exports recycled PET to other countries such as England and Australia."
In 2017, 185,000 tons of PET beverage bottles made from virgin plastic were supplied to the Thai market and less than half of these bottles were collected and taken for recycling, with almost 100,000 tons going to the landfill, with the rest finding its way into the ocean, creating environmental issues at the global level. With an increasing number of countries now aware of the issue of plastic waste, support for the use of plastic packaging that can be recycled is growing, notably in Japan and the European Union (EU). All 28 EU member countries currently recycle post-consumer PET packaging to produce primary food contact recycled PET packaging, which proves that the use of recycled PET is safe for consumption. Germany leads the EU with a PET bottle recycling rate of 94 percent, while in Asia, Japan leads the recycling rate with 83 percent.
"As one of the world's biggest PET producers, the company recognizes the importance of using plastic in a sustainable way and we would stress that PET plastic is not meant for single use followed by disposal. PET can be reused in many different ways through an effective recycling process, including as recycled PET in food and beverage packaging. The more recycled PET is going to be used, the lower the reliance on virgin plastics in the production of PET bottles. This will not only increase the demand for recycled PET, but will also encourage the recycling industry to generate incremental economic value throughout the supply chain. Furthermore, this will encourage the recycling industry to take on the important role of sorting plastic waste from other general wastes, to then produce recycled PET for further use." Mr. Richard concluded.