Borealis reports progress on recycling in Indonesia

Borealis AG, an Austria-based global provider of polymers for packaging materials, says the Project STOP effort it co-founded in Indonesia has provided comprehensive waste services to some 400,000 people from 2017 through the end of 2023.

The effort, operating in part in Banyuwangi, Indonesia, was jointly developed by Borealis and Systemiq, a London-based venture capital firm created to help companies attain United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement.

Indonesia, a nation consisting of some 6,000 inhabited islands, has been identified as a high-volume source of discarded plastics entering the planet’s oceans. It has attracted investments from Borealis and other companies and entities attempting to collect and recycle plastic.

“Since its inception in 2017, Project STOP, hand-in-hand with its governmental and nongovernmental partners, has created almost 300 full-time jobs across all Project STOP locations,” Borealis says. The jobs include waste collection, material sorting and other waste system management and administrative roles.

Borealis estimates more than 60,000 metric tons of material, including nearly 9,000 metric tons of plastic, have been collected through Project STOP as of the end of last year. “This not only stops pollution from entering the environment, but it also shows the program’s direct, tangible contributions to responsible waste management,” Borealis says.

In 2023, Project STOP handed over operations in its second and third cities, Pasuruan and Jembrana, after nearly four years operating on the ground in each location.

The Project STOP scale-up program in the Banyuwangi Regency of East Java has shifted into implementation mode by opening what Borealis calls a large-scale materials recovery facility (MRF) and launching initial service rollouts.

Three months after its inauguration in September 2023, the facility was providing access to waste services to more than 13,500 individuals in 12 villages, according to Borealis.

“We are very proud to further extend our commitment to Project STOP, striving to provide Indonesia’s first regency-wide waste management system, enabling access to sustainable waste collection to all residents in Banyuwangi—fully true to our purpose of reinventing essentials for sustainable living,” Borealis CEO Thomas Gangl says.

“Borealis will fully finance the construction of a second MRF under the Project STOP Banyuwangi Hijau expansion and the roll-out of waste services to an additional 250,000 people in the region.”

Borealis says the success of Project STOP can be attributed in part to its “meaningful collaborations and close relationships" with various Indonesian government bodies, including two national ministries.

Ultimately, the Project STOP partners aim to provide waste collection services to 2 million people, creating more than 1,000 jobs and collecting 230,000 metric tons of materials annually, including 25,000 metric tons of plastic.

“These achievements were only possible through the work of our visionary partners, notably including the government of Indonesia and our strategic partners from across the public, private and nonprofit sectors," says Ben Dixon, a partner at Systemiq. "We are proud of Project STOP’s accomplishments to date and hope that our efforts can help inspire ever-broadening impacts in the future.”

Borealis and Systemiq also credit Ipuk Fiestiandani, the regent of the Banyuwangi district. “She has emphasized the ongoing global waste issue and stressed the imperative need for cooperation among stakeholders to prevent environmental waste leakage,” the companies say. “Ipuk has expressed Banyuwangi Regency’s commitment to Project STOP Banyuwangi Hijau, striving for tangible improvements in both environmental health and the wellbeing of Banyuwangi residents."