Mexico’s largest PET recycling plant sets ambitious 2020 goal

PetStar SAPI de CV is launching a revised sustainable business model as it aims to consolidate its position as the world´s leading food-grade PET recycler in an increasingly competitive industry.

Founded in 2006, the Mexican company’s goal is to recover and recycle all PET bottles by 2020 and therefore achieve zero waste.

“Currently we are collecting 70 percent of the bottles sent to market,” company founder and CEO Jaime Camara Creixell said in a Dec. 20, 2016 interview. “We have to get to 100 percent“.

PetStar uses wind-generated electricity at its sophisticated recycling plant on the outskirts of Toluca, about 40 miles west of Mexico City, in the State of Mexico; and is aiming for neutral carbon and water footprints by the year 2020.

The facility, some 40 miles west of Mexico City, can recycle up to 130 million pounds of PET a year, enough to fill the Aztec stadium 2.4 times. 1,000 workers are employed in the plant, in addition to 25,000 indirect employees, such as pepenadores nationwide.

PetStar’s largest stakeholder is Coca-Cola bottlers Arca Continental SAB de CV (49.9 percent).

The consumption of products is constant in Mexico. Each Mexican produces an average of 311 kilograms of Urban Solid Waste per year, of which only 39.7 percent is likely to be harvested, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi).

A giant in Mexico

Since its original launch in 2006, the plant has expanded to meet the demand of the Coca Cola system.

Additional investment made it possible to double capacity, and in July 2014 the plant was re-inaugurated, becoming the world’s largest food grade PET recycler.

In Mexico, more than 120 million inhabitants have raised their life rate to 74.5 years, while in the last six decades the population has quadrupled. The average age of citizens fluctuates between 23 and 29 years, a trend that will raise the consumption of products and the generation of waste.

Mexico is the main consumer of bottled water worldwide, with a consumption of 28,453 litres each year, according to Kantar World Panel, and the fourth place in the consumption of carbonated beverages, with a consumption of 137 litres per person per year, according to a study by Euromonitor International.

By Elliot Bullman for Mexico News Network

Source: http://www.mexiconewsnetwork.com/