“Green” Plants: Alba looks east to HK for recycling plant;

German recycler Alba Group is expanding its activities in Asia with the groundbreaking for its first recycling plant for the processing of PET and HDPE waste in Hong Kong, with a planned capacity of 35,000 tonnes/year. The plant will be operated by the joint venture New Life Plastics Ltd. that comprises partners: Swire Coca-Cola Limited and Baguio Waste Management & Recycling Limited (Baguio), a Hong Kong recycling firm which is the subsidiary of Baguio Green Group Limited.

The plant is being built in the EcoPark in Hong Kong, an industrial site for recycling and environmental technology. The Alba plant for recycling electrical and electronic waste (Hong Kong WEEE·PARK), which started in 2018, is also located here. The new plant will consist of three process stages: the high-tech sorting, the production of food-grade PET flakes and the manufacture of HDPE pellets. It will commence in the second half of 2020.

In the joint venture of the Alba Group, Swire Coca-Cola and Baguio, the expertise and operational areas of the three participating companies are combined. Swire Coca-Cola, as a key player in the domestic beverages market, is in full support of delivering a working plastic collection and recovery system in Hong Kong. As the project manager, Swire Properties, part of Swire Pacific, is responsible for design and construction of a facility with latest technologies for wastewater management and photovoltaic systems. As the local partner of waste management and recycling, Baguio will leverage on their strong expertise in waste management in contributing to collection and logistics management. Alba provides the technology expertise for sorting and processing the delivered plastics into flakes and pellets. The food-grade PET flakes are subsequently reused to produce new bottles, while the HDPE pellets go into the classic recycling into new, high-quality products both in the consumer area and in industrial applications.