Coca-Cola joint venture invests $60M in Mexican PET recycling plant

A joint venture between Mexico-City-based Coca-Cola FEMSA and Alpla, a global producer of sustainable packaging solutions, is investing $60 million in a new recycling plant known as Planta Nueva Ecología de Tabasco (PLANETA).

According to Alpla, the facility can process 50,000 metric tons of post-consumer polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles per year, resulting in 35,000 metric tons of recycled PET materials ready for reuse.

Alpla expects PLANETA to generate 20,000 direct and indirect jobs, helping promote development and employment in southeast Mexico.

The facility will integrate 18 collection centers throughout south and southeast Mexico.

Alpla CEO Philipp Lehner says that with strong partners like Coca-Cola FEMSA, they could set up the necessary infrastructure and close the bottle cycle in as many regions as possible.

The new plant for food-grade PET is Alpla’s third recycling plant in Mexico.

Alpla plans to continue to invest more than $56 million every year between 2021 and 2025 to expand the company’s global recycling capacity.

Coca-Cola Co.'s World without Waste initiative aims to make all of its packaging 100 percent recyclable by 2025, integrate 50 percent recycled PET resin into bottles, and collect 100 percent of that packaging by 2030.

Since 2005, Alpla Mexico, Coca-Cola Mexico, and Coca-Cola FEMSA have partnered to run Industria Mexicana de Reciclaje (IMER), a food-grade PET recycling plant with a production capacity of 15,000 metric tons of flakes from post-consumer PET scrap per year. The plant has processed over 140,000 metric tons of this material to date.