A ground-breaking ceremony was recently held for a new recycling plant in Indonesia, the first of its kind in a country that is a major contributor to marine plastics pollution.

The plant is owned by PT Alba Tridi Plastics Recycling Indonesia, a joint venture between Alba Group Asia (Hongkong, China; www.alba.com) – a sister company of Interzero (Berlin; www.interzero.com) – and Dian Krniawati, founder of PT Tridi Oases Group (Banten, Indonesia; www.tridi-oasis.com).

The facility, with an investment of USD 60 mn (EUR 55 mn), represents a significant step forward for Indonesia towards its near-zero plastics pollution target by 2040.

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It will be built on an area of 2.6 hectares in the Kendal Industrial Park in Central Java and house state-of- the-art equipment capable of processing PET beverage bottles and transforming them into high-quality rPET flakes and food-grade rPET pellets. To fulfill its annual production capacity of 36,000 t, the factory will require around 48,000 t of waste PET bottles. These bottles will primarily be collected in Java and the region.

Axel Schweitzer, shareholder and chairman of both Interzero and Alba Group Asia, said the plant will create 150 jobs.

Indonesia is one of the main export destinations for plastics waste from Europe, with a 19,301 t intake volume in March 2023, an 18.8% increase on the month, according to Eurostat.