PTT Global Chemical Plc (PTTGC), a petrochemical flagship of PTT Group, has opened Thailand’s first and Southeast Asia’s largest high-quality and food-grade recycled plastic resin plant, aiming to process 60,000 tonnes per year.
Kongkrapan Intrajang, chief executive officer of PTTGC, said the recycling plant is operated by ENVICCO – a joint venture 70% owned by PTTGC and 30% by ALPLA Co, a subsidiary of Austria-based ALPLA Group, an international plastics manufacturer and plastics recycler.
The official opening was on Monday, with the long term aim of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions across all operations by the use of circular resources.
He said it is the first plastic resin plant in Thailand and the largest in Southeast Asia and wlll manufacture world-class high-quality and food-grade recycled plastic pellets.
This recycling plant is at the Asia Industrial Estate in Map Ta Phut of Rayong province. He said it will reduce the amount of domestically used plastics in Thailand by 60,000 tonnes per year, while decreasing greenhouse gases by 75,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent to reforesting 78,000 rai.
Used plastics in Thailand will make up 100% of the raw materials processed by ENVICCO’s cutting-edge production technologies to transform used plastics into valuable products.
The ENVICCO production plant is part of our long-term circular economy strategy to fully realise PTTGC’s value chain.
"ENVICCO is one of the fastest built facilities in history. Thanks to our invaluable partnership with PTTGC, this facility now stands at the forefront of our industry and will definitely play an important part in ALPLA’s recycling business in Asia,” said Gunther Lehner, chairman of ALPLA.
The world-class facility, equipped and operated to international production standards, manufacturing high-quality and food-grade recycled plastic resins that are certified by the US Food and Drug Administration.
The facility features state-of-the-art European technologies, resulting in consistently high-quality and safe products for consumers.
The new plant has a maximum production capacity of 45,000 tonnes of recycled plastic resins each year, which can be divided into 30,000 tonnes of recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) resin and 15,000 tonnes of recycled high density polyethylene (rHDPE) resin.
The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, says it has enforced a ban on all single-use plastic and styrene foam in national parks since April.
Although convenience and department stores in the country have generally stopped providing free single-use plastic bags to their customers, they are still widely used by smaller vendors.