Alba Group Asia to build biggest plastic recycling plant in Vietnam

Alba Group Asia, under German waste management and recycling giant Alba, and Vietnamese firm VietCycle will jointly develop a $50 million food-grade PET/HDPE plastic recycling plant, the largest in Vietnam.

Per an agreement signed between the two sides on Wednesday, the plant with a capacity of 48,000 tons a year can enter first-phase operation in 2024 or 2025.

The project will utilize advanced technology, adopted by many multinational corporations, to produce food-grade PET/HDPE resin to meet international standards set by the EU.

In 2022, VietCycle collected and sorted more than 16,000 tons of plastic waste from Hanoi, and the provinces of Bac Ninh, Hung Yen, and Vinh Phuc, all in northern Vietnam. In addition, the company has ongoing partnerships with many international organizations including UNDP, AEPW, Dow Chemical, IUCN, TCP Group, PEPSI, and Unilever to increase collection rates as well as organize gender equality and social inclusion programs.

According to the World Bank, about three million tons of plastic waste are discharged on land in Vietnam and from 0.28 to 0.73 million tons in the ocean yearly.

On the same day, Alba Group Asia chairman Axel Schweitzer had a meeting with Hanoi Mayor Tran Sy Thanh to discuss waste treatment facilitation. Thanh affirmed the capital, with a population of 10 million, discharges a great amount of waste and that the city has always focused on waste treatment toward green and sustainable growth. He added that Hanoi would welcome investors in this sector.

Recently, Vietnam welcomed many waste treatment and waste-to-power projects. Vietnam Waste Solutions Co. Ltd., wholly-invested by U.S.-based California Waste Solutions (CWS), Inc., is about to invest $700 million in a waste treatment project in Long An province with a designed capacity of 40,000 tons.

Hai Phong city will seek investors for two waste-to-power plants in 2022-2027, according to the northern city's latest plan on handling solid waste for 2022-2025, with vision until 2050.

The nine-hectare waste-to-power plant No. 1 in Dinh Vu Processing Zone, Hai An district can handle 1,000 tons of waste daily and has a capacity of 20 megawatts in phase 1 and 40 MW in phase 2. The 10-20 hectare waste-to-power plant No. 2 in Tran Duong town, Vinh Bao district can process 1,000 tons of waste daily and has a capacity of 20 MW.

Last November, water supply company Biwase tapped development financial institutions for new $20 million financing for a waste management and energy efficiency project in the southern industrial province of Binh Duong. The funding, approved by the Asian Development Bank, comprised a $7 million official development assistance loan from Japan, another $7 million loan from ordinary capital resources, and a $6 million loan from Leading Asia's Private Infrastructure Fund.

In August 2022, Harvest Waste B.V., a Dutch waste management company, received permission to carry out initial studies for a waste-to-energy project in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang. Provincial authorities gave the green light to a partnership between Harvest Waste and Vietnamese firms Pacific Group and Alpha Investment to study the project that will turn residual waste into clean electricity with Dutch technology. The project location chosen is My Tu district.