Currently Processing 400 tonnes of Recycled Beverage Bottles per Month Maximum Handling Capacity Throughput Up to 900 tonnes

Proper Disposal of Plastic Bottles  

Can Reduce Landfill Burden, Save Consumers on Waste Charges and Achieve Carbon Neutral Goal for Hong Kong

HONG KONG, Dec. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- New Life Plastics Ltd (NLP) celebrated the opening ceremony of its new plastic recycling facility today. As a joint venture between ALBA Group (Asia) Limited (ALBA), Baguio Waste Management and Recycling Limited (Baguio) and Swire Coca-Cola Limited (Swire Coca-Cola), the 6,500 square metre-facility, located in Lot T6 of the EcoPark, Tuen Mun, is the largest food-grade ready plastic recycling facility in Hong Kong.

Dr. Axel Schweitzer, Chairman of ALBA, Mr. Ben Ng Wing Hong, Chairman and Executive Director of Baguio and Mr. Patrick Healy, Chairman of Swire Coca-Cola, were in attendance to celebrate the opening and officiate the ceremony together with Mr. Frank Schepers, General Manager of NLP.

With a planned monthly capacity throughput of 900 tonnes | major beverage manufacturers as the aimed customers

Mr. Frank Schepers, General Manager of NLP pointed out: "As a joint venture between ALBA, Baguio and Swire Coca-Cola, NLP's goal is to become a sustainable development player between the consumers, the producers and the Hong Kong SAR Government by being an industrial scaled player in closing the loop at the end-consumption and recycling plastic bottles to produce food-grade ready rPET flakes and high-quality rHDPE flakes for a broad range of applications. The recycling facility opened today is dedicated to processing in Hong Kong with a designed capacity of handling up to 900 tonnes planned capacity throughput of mainly PET bottles monthly for now. The facility has been operating since the first quarter of this year, with a monthly processing capacity of about 400 tonnes currently."

Mr. Frank Schepers further pointed out: "The aimed major customers of NLP are local beverage manufactures, including Swire Coca-Cola, one of the joint venture shareholders of the group; and we are also discussing with other beverage producers to process and recycle their PET bottles through NLP; I believe that in the near future, other well-known brands will join us and work together to contribute to the sustainable development of the beverage market in Hong Kong."

Dr. Axel Schweitzer, Chairman of ALBA Group (Asia) Limited, explained: "As a global leader in recycling technology, we are honored to contribute with ALBA's worldwide leading recycling technology to support Hong Kong's environmental blueprint alongside our Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) electronic recycling plant. With this opening ceremony we fulfill our promise from September 2019 to build the first advanced recycling plant for PET here. Plastic waste is seen foremost as a huge problem all over the world and Hong Kong is no different. We want and will change this perception, following our vision: A world without waste. We see especially food-grade PET as a resource not waste."

Mr. Ben Ng Wing Hong, Chairman and Executive Director of Baguio Green Group, said: "With NLP being the first state-of-the-art plastic recycling plant in the city, today marks a significant milestone in the plastic waste recycling development in the city. In Hong Kong, more than 4.7 million plastic beverage containers are disposed of at landfills on a daily basis. This indeed is a very alarming fact. With NLP up and running from today onwards, the facility will be able to process and recycle these bottles into high quality food-grade ready plastic flakes. This NLP project combines the strength of Baguio, Swire Coca-Cola and ALBA. We hope that this project is much more than just a recycling facility. It is also a display of potential synergy among businesses in making their contribution to and fulfilling their social responsibilities for sustainable development. At the same time, we urge for more active participations from businesses and the public to join us in the journey to build a cleaner, greener and more sustainable environment for our future generations."

Mr. Patrick Healy, Chairman of Swire Coca-Cola Limited, said: "In 2017, Swire Coca-Cola, alongside other beverage manufacturers, retailers, NGOs, recyclers and other interested parties, came together as founding members of the Single-Use

Beverage Packaging Working Group. That group launched the 'Drink Without Waste' initiative, one of whose key aims was to create a true circular economy for beverage packaging in Hong Kong. As one of the advocators of 'Drink Without Waste', Swire Coca-Cola made a series of commitments, including dramatically reducing the amount of plastic in our PET bottles and dramatically increasing the recycled content in our primary packaging. The establishment of NLP represents a huge step towards our goal of 'closing the loop': that is, collecting and processing Hong Kong's discarded PET bottles to produce the raw materials which will come back into the supply chain as recycled PET, not just for Swire Coca-Cola, but for all Hong Kong's beverage producers."

Mr. Frank Schepers concludes, "NLP is driving the so-called 'bottle-to-bottle' approach. The rPET plastic boom is attracting a wider attention and I am glad to see NLP taking the lead in the domestic market for food-grade ready rPET recycling processing. I am sure our role will add value to the conventional plastic bottle recycling industry by providing a sustainable solution to Hong Kong's plastic bottle usage through the creation of a circular economy for PET beverage bottles."

About New Life Plastics

New Life Plastics Ltd is the largest food-grade ready plastics recycling facility in Hong Kong. NLP is designed and focus on the processing of Hong Kong's PET beverage bottles (PET) to food-grade ready rPET flakes, which are supplied to other manufacturers to produce recycled PET and related products, NLP processes through the use of advanced European technology, providing a sustainable solution to Hong Kong's plastic bottle usage through the creation of a circular economy for both PET and HDPE plastic bottles.

New Life Plastics Ltd is a joint venture formed by ALBA Group Asia Limited, Baguio Waste Management & Recycling Limited, and Swire Coca-Cola Limited. The facility offers physical and virtual tours for general public, organisations, school and universities, industry and NGOs on an appointment basis. Interested parties, please visit NLP website to register and request for an appointment.

To learn more about New Life Plastics, please visit https://www.nlplastics.com.hk

About ALBA Group

ALBA has more than 20 years of experience in Asia and over 50 years in the Recycling industry. ALBA Group Asia has its headquarters in Hong Kong, SAR and operating facilities in China, Indonesia, and Singapore. The company is globally renowned for top-quality recycling and waste management solutions. Further information can be found at https://www.alba.com/

About Baguio Green Group

Established in 1980, Baguio Green Group (Stock code: 01397.HK) is one of Hong Kong's largest and most respected integrated environmental services groups. It provides a full spectrum of professional services including professional cleaning, waste collection & recycling, waste management, green technology, organic fertilizer and animal feed production, horticulture & landscaping, and pest control. It serves a wide range of customers in various sectors including Government departments, statutory organizations and multinational corporations. Fully committed to ESG, the Group works relentlessly to advance sustainable development and create a cleaner, greener, healthier city.

About Swire Coca-Cola Limited

Swire Coca-Cola is a division of Swire Pacific Limited, a listed company on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (stock code: 00019/ 00087). As the fifth largest Coca-Cola bottler in the world by volume, Swire Coca-Cola has the exclusive right to manufacture, market and distribute products of The Coca-Cola Company in 11 provinces and the Shanghai Municipality of the Chinese Mainland and in Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan Region, Cambodia and 13 states of the USA. Swire Coca-Cola's relationship with Coca-Cola began in 1965, with the acquisition by Swire of a majority shareholding in the Hong Kong bottling company. Swire Coca-Cola manufactures over 60 beverage brands and distributes them to a franchise population of around 780 million people.

Appendix 1: The introduction of NLP Recycling Facilities

Appendix 2: "Rebate and Money Saving" Plastic Bottle Recycling Guide 

Appendix 3: Tips for Properly Recycling Plastic Bottles

 

Appendix 1: The introduction of NLP Recycling Facilities

Utilise Advanced Recycling Processing System to Ensure the Highest Resource Quality

In recent years, thanks to the initiatives and efforts of the government, NGOs, collectors and consumers, the community's awareness and habit of recycling clean plastic bottles has greatly improved, providing a high-quality source of recycled plastic PET beverage bottles for NLP.

NLP's role begins with the arrival of post-consumer PET beverage bottles and HDPE containers packed in bales, then the entirety of them will go through the 5 dedicated advanced processing pillars in the facility, namely Preparation, Separation, Sorting, Processing and Quality Control.

The processing briefly explained, the Bales Breaker opens the bales, here the bottles are separated from each other before going through an Over-belt Magnet, for the removal of metal impurities and the drum screen to size screening of the bottles, and label Scraper, to remove the labels from the bottles. Next step, the bottle sorting according material specs (PET or HDPE) and in the second stage, separation of transparent bottles from colored bottles colors by using advanced automated optical sorting technology.

Afterwards, the separated clear PET bottles and HDPE containers will be sent to different silos for the processing phase, as, grinding, washing, and drying. The final Clear PET flakes will additionally go through a Dual Hot Washing Stage and a final quality check of size and purity by a flake Optical Sorter, both are important steps to comply with the food-grade ready standard. The other products as colored rPET flakes, label flakes and, cap and ring flakes, rPET fines, will be processed separately and sent through different silos for final storage.

NLP also features an in-house quality control laboratory to monitor closely on all yields, and food grade ready quality specifications, thereby, ensuring the highest possible standards are met before dispatching.

The scheme and facilities are designed with the theme of sustainable development, with online and offline guided group tours

Designed with sustainable building features, including a photovoltaic power system for renewable electrical energy, a heat recovery system from air compressors to provide warm water for cleaning flakes, an integrated water circulation system and a wastewater treatment, NLP is committed to an environmentally friendly form of energy and water consumption.

The introduction of the first-of-its-kind food-grade ready rPET flake ready recycling processing in Hong Kong by NLP is pivotal to the local plastic bottle recycling industry, as it is an important part of the closed-loop recycling solution, meaning that the valuable material is recycled back to a quality similar to virgin PET, hence, creating more economic and environmental value.

Appendix 2: "Rebate and Money Saving" Plastic Bottle Recycling Guide

Assuming a family of four, each person consumes one plastic bottle of beverage per day, each plastic beverage bottle of the most common bottle size of 0.72 litres

• Plastic Bottle for Rebate
  • For every beverage container fed in the Reverse Vending Machine, each can get HK$0.1 rebate
  • Taking the most common beverage bottle size of 0.72 litres each, assuming each person consumes one plastic bottle of beverage per day, a family of four consumes 120 plastic bottles per month, and can get a rebate of $12
• Plastic Bottles for Money Saving
  • The household solid waste levy will adopt the "by designated bag"/"by designated label" model, with a charge of $0.11 per litre, with nine different sizes for general use by the public, including t-shirt (3L-20L) and flat-top (20L-100L) designs
  • Taking the most common beverage bottle size of 0.72 litres each, assuming each person consumes one plastic bottle of beverage per day, a family of four has nearly 3 litres of solid waste per day; taking the solid waste levy for t-shirt bag size of $0.11 per litre, the daily charge will be $0.33 with a monthly expenditure reaching $9.9
• If the plastic bottles are well-cleaned and returned to RVMs:
  • It can increase the family monthly income by $12
  • Save $9.9 on garbage bags
  • Bring a total benefit of $21.9
  • If there is a larging plastic bottled beverage consumption, the benefits will even be greater

Appendix 3: Tips for Properly Recycling Plastic Bottles

The proper recycling steps are as follows:

There is a chance that the entire bin of recyclables will become wastage if we unproperly discard or pollute the recyclables. Therefore, it is recommended to follow the below steps when recycling plastic bottles:

• First, distinguish recyclables from non-recyclable items: Items that can be collected by the brown recycling bin include beverage plastic bottles and plastic containers of personal care products
• Clean and sort before recycling:
  • Remove the bottle cap first
  • Pour out the liquid in the plastic bottle, and then rinse with clean water
  • Remove the labels on the bottle, and return the recyclables, "paper for paper, plastic for plastic"
  • Put the plastic bottle caps, labels and plastic bottles to their respective recycle bins

Alternatives to Recycling Bins: Reversed Vending Machines

After the used beverage plastic containers are processed, return them to EPD's 120 RVMs:

• EPD will provide an instant rebate of $0.1 per beverage plastic container via e-payment platforms to encourage the public to return their used plastic beverage containers.
• Each Octopus card or Alipay (Hong Kong) account allows the public to return a maximum of 30 plastic beverage containers and redeem the rebate in a day
• Members of the public may also choose to donate the rebate (no daily limit imposed) to designated charitable organisations to benefit the community.

 

• All the beverage plastic containers collected would be delivered to suitable local recyclers, as arranged by the Government-appointed contractors, for recycling to ensure the conversion of waste into resources.
• Citizens can also choose to return beverage plastic bottles into the RVMs jointly launched by Swire Coca-Cola Hong Kong, Octopus Cards Limited and the World Green Organisation. Swire Coca-Cola Hong Kong offers the following for every beverage bottle returned via the jointly launched Reversed Vending Machines:
  • HK$0.1 cash rebate via Octopus cards
  • HK$0.1 donation for environmental protection education

Handling of other plastic materials

For recycling plastic bags, plastic tableware, drinking straws, food boxes, disposable plastic food containers, yogurt cups, plastic bottle caps, plastic buckets, CD discs/boxes, plastic packaging boxes for mobile phone cases, etc. The above non-bottle waste plastics can be sent to the plastic classification recycling bins set up by the community recycling stations in various districts of "GREEN@COMMUNITY", operated by the non-profit organisation subsidised by EPD. Under the scheme, there are also recycling spots set up in different districts every week to facilitate residents recycling.

Source: New Life Plastics Ltd