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Presse-Paket
Bilder und Texte

First stone laid for PET recy­cling plant in the south-east of Mexico

Joint ven­ture bet­ween ALPLA and Coca-Cola FEMSA to boost the cir­cular economy

Hard, 26 January 2022 – With the aim of boos­ting the cir­cular eco­nomy in the states of south-east Mexico, a cor­ner­stone ceremony was held to mark the start of con­s­truc­tion of the new PLANETA recy­cling plant in the muni­ci­pa­lity of Cun­du­acán in the State of Tabasco. The pro­ject is the result of a joint ven­ture bet­ween ALPLA, a global leader in the deve­lo­p­ment and pro­duc­tion of sus­tainable pla­stic pack­a­ging solu­tions and bottle-to-bottle recy­cling, and Coca-Cola FEMSA, the lar­gest bot­tler of Coca-Cola pro­ducts in the world.

With an invest­ment of more than 60 mil­lion dol­lars, the recy­cling plant Planta Nueva Eco­logía de Tabasco – better known as PLANETA – will be equipped with the most modern tech­no­logy available world­wide. It will have the capa­city to pro­cess 50,000 tonnes of post-consumer PET bot­tles per year, which will result in 35,000 tonnes of recy­cled PET mate­rial ready for reuse.

The cor­ner­stone ceremony was led by Guil­lermo Arturo del Rivero León, secre­tary of the govern­ment of Tabasco, and was attended by renowned figures such as Carlos Torres Bal­les­teros, ALPLA mana­ging director for Mexico, Cen­tral Ame­rica and the Carib­bean; John Santa Maria, chief exe­cu­tive officer of Coca-Cola FEMSA; Abraham Cano, mayor of Cun­du­acán; and José Fried­rich García Mal­litz, secre­tary for the eco­nomic deve­lo­p­ment and com­pe­ti­ti­ve­ness of Tabasco.

Deve­lo­p­ment node for south-east Mexico
The con­s­truc­tion and ope­ra­tion of the PLANETA recy­cling plant is expected to gene­rate more than 20,000 direct and indi­rect jobs and will thus make a key con­tri­bu­tion to the objec­tives of the Mexican govern­ment headed by Pre­si­dent Andrés Manuel López Obrador to pro­mote deve­lo­p­ment and employ­ment in south-east Mexico.

Its stra­tegic loca­tion in the region with the grea­test poten­tial for solid waste recy­cling will also make it an important deve­lo­p­ment node that will inte­grate 18 coll­ec­tion cen­tres throug­hout south and south-east Mexico. In addi­tion to offe­ring an envi­ron­mental ser­vice, it will boost the region’s economy.

Reduce, reuse, recycle
ALPLA and Coca-Cola FEMSA are embra­cing their posi­tion as lea­ding com­pa­nies to pro­mote and imple­ment effec­tive mea­sures to reduce pol­lu­tion, reuse pla­stic waste and rein­force the coll­ec­tion and recy­cling chain.

ALPLA CEO Philipp Lehner says, ‘The big chall­enge today is the hand­ling of the mate­rials after the con­sump­tion phase. We are curr­ently inves­ting world­wide in sys­tems to give pla­stic pack­a­ging a value – because then it is coll­ected and recy­cled. With strong part­ners like Coca-Cola FEMSA at our side, we will be able to set up the neces­sary infra­struc­ture and close the bottle cycle in as many regions as possible.’

John Santa Maria, CEO of Coca-Cola FEMSA, explains, ‘As an envi­ron­men­tally respon­sible Mexican com­pany dedi­cated to crea­ting eco­nomic, social and envi­ron­mental value in the com­mu­ni­ties in which it ope­rates, Coca-Cola FEMSA is per­ma­nently com­mitted to caring for the planet. This is why we are imple­men­ting a series of mea­sures to pro­mote recy­cling with the goal of reco­ve­ring 100% of post-consumer packaging.’

Global recy­cling initiatives
In col­la­bo­ra­tion with all of the com­pa­nies that make up the Coca-Cola Mexican Industry (IMCC), Coca-Cola FEMSA is part of the global World Wit­hout Waste initia­tive laun­ched by the Coca-Cola Com­pany, which aims to make all pack­a­ging 100% recy­clable by 2025, inte­grate 50% recy­cled PET resin into bot­tles and collect 100% of the pack­a­ging by 2030.

ALPLA mana­ging director for Mexico, Cen­tral Ame­rica and the Carib­bean, Carlos Torres Bal­les­teros, stated, ‘This new recy­cling plant for food-grade PET will be ALPLA’s third recy­cling plant in Mexico, which makes us a spear­head at a national level and a recy­cling bench­mark for the rest of the world. As part of our com­mit­ment to sus­taina­bi­lity, ALPLA will invest more than 50 mil­lion euros every year bet­ween 2021 and 2025 to expand its global recy­cling capacity.’

In 2018, ALPLA and Coca-Cola FEMSA joined the New Pla­s­tics Eco­nomy Global Com­mit­ment laun­ched by the Ellen Mac­Ar­thur Foun­da­tion in col­la­bo­ra­tion with the United National Envi­ron­ment Pro­gramme. Its goals are to make 100% of its pro­ducts reusable, recy­clable or com­post­able by 2025 and to have 25% post-consumer recy­cled mate­rial in total mate­rial con­sump­tion by that year.

On this occa­sion, Guil­lermo Arturo del Rivero León, secre­tary of the govern­ment of Tabasco, high­lighted that ‘PLANETA repres­ents Coca-Cola FEMSA and ALPLA’s com­mit­ment to sus­taina­bi­lity but, at the same time, it is one more step towards a cir­cular eco­nomy, which is essen­tial for achie­ving the Govern­ment of Tabasco’s inter­na­tional com­mit­ment in the 2030 Agenda under Carlos Merino’s lea­der­ship to build stronger and greener economies.’

Post-consumer PET pioneers
Since 2005, ALPLA Mexico, Coca-Cola Mexico and Coca-Cola FEMSA have united forces to run Indus­tria Mexi­cana de Reci­c­laje (IMER), the first food-grade PET recy­cling plant in Latin America.

Located in the State of Mexico, this faci­lity has a pro­duc­tion capa­city of 15,000 tonnes of flakes from post-consumer PET per year. Since its foun­da­tion, it has pro­cessed more than 140,000 tonnes of this mate­rial, which has been returned to the pro­duc­tion cycle of new bot­tles. This has saved the same volume of virgin resin, which in turn has reduced the carbon footprint.

Enquiry infor­ma­tion for editorial
ALPLA, Erik Nielsen (Senior Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Manager), tel.: +43 (0)5574 6021 701, email: erik.nielsen@alpla.com
Pzwei. Pres­se­ar­beit (media agency), Joshua Köb, tel.: +43 (0)5574 4471 522, email: joshua.koeb@pzwei.at