Paper and plastics packaging business Mpact’s new R350-million polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling operation in Wadeville, Germiston, has resulted in South Africa becoming the twenty-fourth country – and the first on the African continent – to meet beverage company The Coca-Cola Company’s full PET certification requirements to package the company’s soft drinks.

The recycling process used by the now fully operational 20 000 m² bottle-to-bottle Mpact Polymers facility, which produces recycled PET (rPET) plastic for food grade packaging, also complied with European Union Food Safety Authority specifications.

Further, the plant had received a “letter of non-objection” from the US Food and Drug Administration for the process technology used.

“Mpact is the first company in the market to have garnered support and approval from both ABI and Coca-Cola. South Africa is also the first country on the African continent to offer a plant that is capable of meeting our [full certification] exact standards. This is a win for all parties involved,” said Coca-Cola South Africa president Therese Gearhart.

Further, the group’s anchor client, Coca-Cola’s bottling partner and SABMiller subsidiary ABI Bottling, would consume 6 000 t/y of the 21 000 t/y rPET food and beverage packaging output from the facility, said ABI MD Velaphi Ratshefola.

The plant would also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about  53 000 t/y and divert around 186 000 m³ of waste from landfills as it processed 29 000 t/y of post-consumer PET bottles, Mpact group CEO Bruce Strong said on Tuesday at the plant’s opening.

Recycled PET was a substitute for virgin PET, which the industry was aiming to reduce its dependency on as a means to reduce its environmental impact.

Industry body PET Plastic Recycling Company (Petco) CEO Cheri Scholtz said total PET – virgin and recycled – consumption in South Africa was around 198 000 t/y, 68% of which was consumed in the beverage industry for bottle manufacture.

The collection and recycling rate of post-consumer PET had increased from 16%, or 9 840 t, in 2004 to 52%, or 73 710 t in 2015.

This represented an increase from eight-million bottles ten years ago to 1.7-billion PET bottles being recycled across South Africa – close to some 4.5-million bottles recycled each and every day, Scholtz pointed out.

“This is comparable with a number of European recycling rates in countries such as France and the UK,” she said.

Petco was targeting the collection and recycling of some 70% by 2022, which was an estimated 171 000 t.

According to the industry body, around 50 000 income opportunities have been created through the collection of PET in South Africa, creating viable commercial opportunities for collections by small businesses.

Mpact Polymers itself, through the recycling plant, had created some 80 direct jobs and 1 000 indirect jobs.

The Industrial Development Corporation provided Mpact a R210-million loan facility, as well as R30-million for its 21% equity stake in the facility, while the Department of Trade and Industry granted it a Section 12i tax allowance incentive.

Construction began in January 2015 and was completed and commissioned in July 2015, with final product approvals obtained in February.