Alpla's new Mexico facility to double its HDPE recycling capacity in 2022

Austrian packaging giant and recycler Alpla Werke Alwin Lehner GmbH & Co KG opened a 20 million euro ($22.9 million) high density polyethylene recycling plant in central Mexico Nov. 10 and promptly announced it will double the facility's capacity to 66.2 million pounds a year by the second half of 2022.

"We are seeing increasing momentum in the recycling market … and the demand from our customers in the region for post-consumer recycled materials is rising," Carlos Torres, Alpla's manager for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, said in a news release, explaining the planned rapid expansion.

Alpla announced that it would build the plant in Toluca, 40 miles west of the Mexican capital, in September 2020. The facility's current capacity is 15,000 metric tons (33.1 million pounds) a year of recycled HDPE, used mainly in the production of nonfood packaging, such as personal and household cleaning products.

The project was expected to cost 15 million euros ($17.7 million) but an additional investment of 5 million euros was required, the Hard, Austria-based company said. The Toluca plant employs about 70 and operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Alpla.

Georg Lässer, Alpla's head of corporate recycling, admitted to being "delighted" to contribute to constructing a circular economy in Mexico.

"We are giving used plastic bottles value and promoting plastics collection and the development of the necessary regional infrastructure," he said.

Alpla is the fifth-largest blow molder in North America, according to Plastics News data, with sales in the region of $1.4 billion.