NAMIBIA – Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) has signed an investment agreement with Namibia Polymer Recyclers (NPR), to set up a plastic recycling plant in the country.
The recycling plant will transform discarded plastic beverage bottles made from PET material into PET flakes that have an international market value.
The process involves the sorting, washing, and shredding of post-consumer bottles into PET flakes, which will be returned to South Africa for further processing into recycled PET products or R-PET material.
This investment will expand CCBA’s partnerships in Namibia focused on plastic waste collection in line with The Coca-Cola Company’s World Without Waste initiative.
The Coca-Cola Company and all its bottling partners are leading the industry to help collect and recycle a bottle or can for everyone they sell by 2030.
“We are working toward solutions to create a circular economy that benefits society and works for our business. We’ve set ambitious goals for our business, to take responsibility for our packaging across its lifecycle and reduce plastic waste pollution,” said Pottie de Bruyn, General Manager of CCBA Namibia.
Plastic Packaging’s subsidiary NPR is the only mechanical recycler in Namibia that currently recycles up to 200 tons of LD plastics per month.
With this partnership, NPR will expand plastic recycling to more than 400 tons per month, ensuring that a circular economy for plastics is created in Namibia.
The two companies signed the Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs), committing to work together to not only step-up the collection and recycling of PET in the country, but also increase the number of youth and women being gainfully employed in plastic waste recycling.
“We are very proud of the partnership that we have built over the years with The Plastic Packaging Group, partnerships are an important element of this ambition, and today we are moving closer to delivering on our target,” said Bruyn.
In Nigeria, the beverage maker through The Coca-Cola Foundation has awarded a grant to the Growing Business Foundation (GBF) to strengthen the plastic waste management value chain through its Empowering Collectors Initiative (ECI).
GBF, a member of the Commonwealth of Nations Initiative, was founded 21 years ago with a mission to combat poverty and promote sustainable and wholesome existence through meaningful development enterprises among the poorest people in Nigeria.
It designed the ECI mainly to improve the largely informal plastic waste collection, aggregation, and recycling process in the West African country.
The new partnership aims to enhance environmental resilience by preventing the flow of plastic waste, especially PET, to waterways and landfills through an aggressive and organized system, targeting about 25,000 MT of waste in 24 months.
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