Bangkok-based petrochemical giant Indorama Ventures announced it has finished expanding its polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling facility in Brazil, almost tripling its capacity from 9,000 tons per year to 25,000 tons per year of PET made from post-consumer recycled material. As the most recycled plastic in the world today, PET is driving sustainable growth due to its recyclable, flexible, safe, and lightweight properties.
One of the world’s largest producers of recycled PET resin, Indorama invested $20 million to optimise the recycling facility, located in Juiz de Fora, in the south-eastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. The funding was funnelled into optimising the facility’s processes and acquiring new washing machines to help remove labels, grind bottles in water, and reduce water consumption by 70%.
The investment was supported by a Blue Loan from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank. Indorama Ventures received $300 million in funding in November 2020, as part of a blue finance scheme which aims to increase recycling capacity and divert plastic waste from landfills and oceans in Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, India, and Brazil—countries which are grappling with mismanaged waste and serious plastic pollution in oceans.
“It is extremely gratifying to leverage the IFC’s generous funding to invest in important projects that build on Indorama Ventures’ industry leadership in sustainability,” said DK Agarwal, deputy group CEO of Indorama Ventures. “We are grateful to IFC for this blue loan reinforcing Brazil’s importance as a leader in sustainability, and which also recognises the excellence and potential of our recycling operations.”
Indorama Ventures has secured a total of $2.4 billion in long-term sustainable financing from various financial institutions between 2018 and 2022 to support sustainability projects. It has pledged to spend $1.5 billion to increase its recycling capacity to 50 billion PET bottles per year by 2025, up from the current 30 billion a year, equivalent to 495,000 tones. It plans to spend another billion to bring that number up to 100 billion by 2030.
The company entered the PET recycling business in 2011 and transforms post-consumer PET bottles into flakes, rPET resins, and recycled polyester yarns. It operates recycling facilities in Mexico, the United States, Brazil, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Thailand, and in the Philippines.