Promoting the circular economy through joint venture

The ground­break­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the con­struc­tion of the new Plan­e­ta recy­cling plant in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Cun­d­u­acán in the state of Tabas­co was held with the aim of pro­mot­ing the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my in the south­east­ern states of Mex­i­co. The project is made pos­si­ble by a joint ven­ture between Alpla, a provider of sus­tain­able plas­tic pack­ag­ing design and man­u­fac­tur­ing and bot­tle-to-bot­tle recy­cling, and Coca-Cola Fem­sa, the largest bot­tler of Coca-Cola prod­ucts in the world.

With an invest­ment of $60 mil­lion, the Plan­ta Nue­va Ecología de Tabas­co recy­cling plant, or PLANETA, will be equipped with the lead­ing tech­nolo­gies. The pro­cess­ing capac­i­ty will be more than 50,000 tons of post-con­sumer PET bot­tles per year. From this, more than 35,000 tons of recy­cled mate­r­i­al can be pro­duced for reuse.

The ground­break­ing cer­e­mo­ny was presided over by Guiller­mo Arturo del Rivero León, Sec­re­tary of the Gov­ern­ment of Tabas­co. Also in atten­dance were oth­er notable fig­ures such as Car­los Tor­res Balles­teros, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor Mex­i­co, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean; John San­ta Maria, CEO of Coca-Cola Fem­sa; Abra­ham Cano, May­or of Cun­d­u­acán; and José Friedrich Gar­cía Mallitz, Sec­re­tary of Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment and Com­pet­i­tive­ness of the State of Tabasco.

Hub for development in southeastern Mexico

The con­struc­tion and oper­a­tion of the recy­cling plant is expect­ed to cre­ate more than 20,000 direct and indi­rect jobs. This con­tributes strong­ly to the goals of the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment led by Pres­i­dent Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is com­mit­ted to pro­mot­ing devel­op­ment and employ­ment in the south­east of the country.

Thanks to its strate­gic loca­tion in a region with great poten­tial for sol­id waste recy­cling, the plant will also become an impor­tant devel­op­ment hub involv­ing a total of 18 col­lec­tion points in south­ern and south­east­ern Mex­i­co. It thus not only con­tributes to envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion, but also pro­motes the econ­o­my in the region.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

The two com­pa­nies are using their posi­tion to pro­mote and imple­ment effec­tive mea­sures to reduce pol­lu­tion, reuse plas­tic waste and strength­en the col­lec­tion and recy­cling chain.

“The big chal­lenge today is how to deal with mate­ri­als after the con­sump­tion phase. We are cur­rent­ly invest­ing in sys­tems around the world to give val­ue to plas­tic pack­ag­ing, because that is when it is col­lect­ed and recy­cled. With strong part­ners like Coca-Cola FEMSA on our side, we are able to build the nec­es­sary infra­struc­ture and close the bot­tle loop in as many regions as possible.”

- Philipp Lehn­er, CEO

John San­ta Maria, CEO of Coca-Cola Fem­sa, explains, “As an envi­ron­men­tal­ly con­scious Mex­i­can com­pa­ny com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing eco­nom­ic, social and envi­ron­men­tal val­ue in the com­mu­ni­ties where it oper­ates, the com­pa­ny is con­tin­u­ous­ly work­ing for the good of the plan­et. As a result, we have ini­ti­at­ed a num­ber of mea­sures to dri­ve recy­cling. Our goal is to recov­er 100 per­cent of post-con­sumer packaging.”