New Life Plastics ready for debut

A sorting and reprocessing facility designed to handle postconsumer polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic containers in Hong Kong will host a media tour Tuesday, Sept. 6.

The facility, situated in the Tuen Mun EcoPark in Hong Kong’s New Territories, was created via a partnership that involves Germany-based Alba Group and its Hong Kong office; Hong Kong-based waste management firm Baguio; and regional bottler Swire Coca-Cola.

The facility has been designed to accept discarded bottles and reprocess them into materials that can go into new PET beverage bottles (rPET flakes), new HDPE personal care product bottles and rHDPE flakes for other applications.

An invitation to the media open house indicates that in 2020, Hong Kong’s Environmental Protection Department calculated that 179 tons of plastic bottles arrived at the landfill each day that year in Hong Kong.

New Life Plastics says its plant is equipped with “advanced European technology,” designed “to transform [the] Hong Kong plastic bottle recycling industry into a circular economy business model.”

Alba Group also has been a partner in Hong Kong’s electronic scrap and appliance recycling facility, and the company is involved in a e-scrap collection and tracking effort in Singapore.