Good news for the town of Ballito, north of Durban in South Africa’s KwaZulu Natal province. A new plant there will recycle nearly 60,000 tonnes of used polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles each year, producing 35,000 tonnes of rPET (recycled PET). The recycling project was announced by Austrian group Alpha on 13 June 2023, along with the start date for work on the site, which is early summer 2023.
The producer of innovative plastic packaging solutions, which opened a branch in Lanseria, near Johannesburg, in 2022, will build the plant on a 90,000 m2 site on the Ballito industrial estate. The work will cost Alpha a total of 64 million euros.
The plant is due to come on stream in autumn 2024
Around 35,000 tonnes of mechanically recycled rPET flakes and granules will also be produced from these bottles, the majority of which will be processed by Alpha to produce its own bottles.
As a result, the future facility will bring the annual production capacity of all Alpha’s recycling businesses and cooperatives to around 238,000 tonnes of rPET (recycled PET) and 74,000 tonnes of rHDPE (recycled high-density polyethylene).
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“Our aim is to set up a bottle-to-bottle cycle where we operate. In this way, as a recycler and producer, we can guarantee the supply of safe, affordable and sustainable packaging and, at the same time, promote awareness of recyclable materials,” says Alpha CEO Philipp Lehner.
And the Ballito recycling plant for used PET bottles, which is due to come on stream in autumn 2024, should help to achieve this goal.
Inès Magoum