By Trina Tan
In Thailand, Dow has been quietly working away over the past few years to create a value chain for circular plastics. This has involved securing raw material sources via plastics waste collection partnerships, investing in both chemical and mechanical recycling, and nurturing markets for packaging made from recycled plastics – whether through its own projects or by partnering with local/overseas institutes and organisations.
In February 2023, Dow Thailand Group started working on the development of the country’s first materials recovery facility (MRF) in Ban Cheng, Rayong province, in collaboration with the Thailand Institute of Scientific and Technological Research (TISTR), Ban Chang District, Ban Chang Subdistrict Municipality, and the Plastics Institute of Thailand.
Rayong is where Dow’s Thai manufacturing operation is located, and the project, with its extensive title, ‘Thailand’s Plastic Circularity Social Enterprise Model: Material Recovery Facility in Ban Chang’, was funded via a THB 20 million ($0.6m) investment from Dow Thailand Group’s Business Impact Fund and the Program Management Unit Competitiveness research fund. It is unclear what Dow’s exact share of the investment was.
Officially opened just a few months later, in September 2023, the MRF focuses on managing the Ban Cheng community’s waste, used plastics packaging, and discarded materials using the circular economy and sustainability framework to encourage waste segregation, improve the recovered material’s quality, and develop new products from waste. The collaboration also includes wastewater treatment and generation of bio-renewable energy.
This initiative, which aims to increase the community’s income and prevent waste from entering to the environment, started off with an aim of having 1,000-1,200 tonnes of waste entering the recycling cycle per annum, which would in turn reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2,400t of carbon dioxide as it returns these waste materials to the production stream.
Long-term project
The project had been a few years in the making. In September 2021, Dow and TISTR signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a project named ‘Improving Community’s Segregated Plastic Waste through Science, Technology, and Innovation’ to promote the use of scientific, technological, and innovative research findings to tackle community plastics waste problems by using a community sorting hub model to improve the quality and value of used plastics, while generating sustainable income for community members in line with circular economy principles.
In addition to creating an MRF, the partners have agreed on four other key activities to be achieved in the next few years. This includes:
- Creating methods and tools to measure the quality of recycled plastics standards; for example, density and community testing.
- Developing a curriculum for ‘zero waste management’, with an emphasis on waste management based on the circular economy model.
- Developing online tools – particularly mobile applications – linking the community to qualified waste-related businesses to promote waste management in a concrete manner.
- Visualising lessons learned from successful community waste management projects to develop a manual for expansion to other communities.
Shortly after, the Alliance to End Plastic Waste – an industry-founded and funded NGO, of which Dow was the chair at the time – announced that it was collaborating with TISTR, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), and the Public Private Partnership for Sustainable Plastics and Waste Management to establish MRF infrastructure and systems in Bangkok and the provinces of Chonburi, Rayong and Chachoengsao in the EEC area.
The goal is to recover a minimum of 50,000t of high-quality plastics waste per annum. The Ban Cheng MRF that Dow had just opened was one of the sites that would participate in a study – the results of which will help in the planning and development of other MRFs and their associated ecosystems in the pilot area.
Just two months later, Dow announced that it would be supporting and funding an enterprise in Thailand that could help reintroduce post-consumer flexible plastics film into the value chain. The small-scale unit had developed low-temperature heat induction-based pyrolysis technology to convert low-value used flexible plastics packaging into pyrolysis oil and further process into circular feedstock for the Dow-affiliated cracker in Map Ta Phut.
Making it viable
In addition to developing the infrastructure, Dow has also spent the past years proving the economic viability of sustainable packaging.
In November 2021, it introduced Thailand’s first plastics shrink film produced from formulated post-consumer recycled (PCR) resin in partnership with Thai Packaging Manufacturer Co. The collation shrink film is comparable with those made with virgin resins and can help to reduce carbon dioxide footprint by 17 per cent, while enabling 30 per cent energy savings.
The PCR resin from Dow is used by TPK as the core layer of collation shrink applications for the wrapping of daily products such as bottles of water, canned soft drinks, shampoo bottles, hair conditioners, shower creams, and lotions, which are packaged in large packs for easy transportation.
Dow also signed an MOU with Thai giant SCG Chemicals (SCGC) Co and Kao Industrial (Thailand) Co in December 2023 to develop packaging design for recyclability – providing consumers with more sustainable packaging options, with a focus on high-quality packaging that has a lower carbon footprint and is recyclable.
Dow’s part involves using its Pack Studio in Singapore and manufacturing expertise in Thailand to develop flexible packaging designed for recyclability. SCGC assists in the design and development of bottles and flexible packaging using its green polymer solutions. Kao – a Japanese consumer product owner of major international brands, including Attack, Biore, Haiter, Laurier and Magiclean – announced plans to use the new, sustainable packaging across a wide range of its product portfolio in Thailand in the near future.
“We have a target of achieving net-zero waste plastics packaging by 2040,” says Yuji Shimizu, Kao Thailand president. “Hence, Kao needs partners that are experts, strong, and have common goals, such as Dow and SCGC, to help us achieve our goals to create environmentally friendly packaging in a sustainable way that truly benefits consumers.”
First-of-its-kind MOU
In May 2024, Dow signed another MOU, this time with just SCGC, that the partners claimed was the first-of-its-kind MOU circularity partnership in the Asia-Pacific region to transform 200,000t of plastics waste into circular products with high-value applications using both chemical and mechanical recycling by 2030.
The initial phases include establishing a value growth partnership for PCR materials with current suppliers, and developing technology solutions in waste sorting, and chemical and mechanical recycling in Thailand. The phases aim to build a robust materials ecosystem in Southeast Asia that will ultimately enable better plastics waste collection, recycling and management, and accelerate plastics circularity.
The partners have ambitious plans to expand sourcing of plastics waste feedstocks beyond Southeast Asia into other parts of the region, including China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand.
Brand owners in Thailand have been biting – in August 2024, Dow announced that Makita Manufacturing (Thailand) Co, a major Thai power tool brand, was adopting plastics cling film that incorporates up to 30 per cent PCR for product logistics applications that require great strength, toughness and flexibility. Ideal for wrapping industrial crates for transportation both manually and with a machine, the solution aims to reduce plastics waste by more than 5t per annum and is fully recyclable.
And, most recently, Dow this April announced that Saint-Gobain’s local subsidiary Saint-Gobain Weber Co had launched a new product (a 1kg tile grout package) in flexible packaging produced by major Thai flexible packaging manufacturer Prepack Thailand Co using Dow’s recycled plastics resin.
The grout packaging bags contain up to 10 per cent PCR plastics while maintaining the same properties and performance as traditional bags, including clarity, strength, impact resistance, moisture protection, and the ability to preserve the product’s quality. The bags are also recyclable where facilities exist.
These new bags are expected to reduce plastics waste by utilising more than 2.3t of PCR and cut carbon emissions by more than 2.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually – figures derived from third-party verification by the Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organisation, based on three million bags.
