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.