This Earth Month, Tatler visited the New Life Plastics recycling plant in Tuen Mun to learn about its processes and to get a clear picture of Hong Kong’s plastics recycling situation
The plastic pollution crisis is everywhere. In Hong Kong, about 20 per cent of our municipal solid waste was plastic in 2022—that’s about 850,000 tonnes of plastics that went to the landfill. And only a meagre 6 per cent of it was recovered for recycling. One of the sites this plastic is sent to for recycling is New Life Plastics (NLP), a plastic bottle recycling plant in Tuen Mun.
“I think it’s fair to say that Hong Kong is behind where it’d like to be in terms of recycling if you compare it to [other] developed regions,” says Alfred Weston, NLP general manager, when Tatler speaks to him during a recent visit to the site. “It’s easy to be pessimistic about things but there’s also a lot of good things happening,” he adds.
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NLP was launched in December 2022 with an objective to convert discarded polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles into several types of plastic flakes—one of them being food-grade ready—used to make new products. The company receives bottles from local sources—mostly from companies that sort and compact them into large blocks—and turn them into recycled PET (or rPET) which is then sold to local manufacturers, keeping its operations within the city.
Although it is Hong Kong’s largest plant of its kind, capable of processing up to 10,800 tonnes of plastic a year, NLP has never reached its full recycling capacity as the city’s poor waste management logistics and recycling habits continue to be a challenge.
Last year, operating at 30 per cent of its capacity (a mere 16 months after opening), NLP struggled to make profits and almost shut down its operations. A new ownership structure negotiated between the three shareholders—Swire Coca-Cola (now the majority shareholder), Alba and Baguio—eventually secured the plant’s long-term funding and continuation.