Global Bottle Maker Commits to Major Boost in Recycling

Sorting line at ALPLA recycling plant.

ALPLA Group, the Austrian-based global producer of blow molded containers, says it will boost its investments in recycling by five times over its prior commitment. ALPLA, which has 25 years’ experience in its own recycling activities, signed the Global Commitment of the New Plastics Economy (an initiative of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation) in 2018, promising to spend a total of 50 million euros to expand its recycling activities up to 2025. Now, the company says it will spend an average of 50 million euros annually on recycling from 2021 through 2025—for a total of 250 euros.

Part of that effort involves globalizing its recycling effort. In the past two years, ALPLA has initiated bottle-to-bottle recycling projects in Asia, Europe and Central America. Capacities at its recycling plants in Austria, Poland and Germany have been expanded in that time period, and just recently, ALPLA announced the installation of an rPET extrusion system at one of its preform plants in Italy. In 2019, the company expanded from PET recycling into HDPE as well, a thrust that is eing continued with construction of a plant in Toluca, Mexico, that’s scheduled to start production this fall. ALPLA is also building a PET and HDPE recycling plant in Thailand together with a partner. All told, the annual capacity of the ALPLA recycling companies, joint ventures and partnerships amounts to around 286 million lb of PET and 132 million lb of HDPE.