Thor Heyerdahl is said to have made the observation that an island is a microcosmos – a place where people must learn to live with the resources available to them. Globalisation may mean that this statement is no longer entirely true but islands know that it is still well worth their while to live efficiently. And so it is no surprise that, faced with growing mountains of waste and a lack of raw materials of its own, Taiwan has spent the last thirty years setting up one of the world’s most efficient recycling systems: with recycling rates of 55% for household waste and an impressive 77% for commercial waste, it found itself leading all the other countries in this area by 2019.
REMONDIS has been one of the companies driving this positive development in Taiwan for many years now. The company took its next step when it opened up a new plastics recycling plant in Fangyuan (a city located on the west coast of the island) that is designed to lead the market in the future. The official opening ceremony on 29 November 2024 was attended by the local management team and their staff as well as politicians, local councillors and a high-level REMONDIS delegation from Germany. This alone underlines just how important this investment – a sum of around 50 million euros – is for the business.
This new plant will replace the plastics recycling plant that REMONDIS has been operating in Nantou (in the centre of Taiwan) for almost thirty years. Thanks to the state-of-the-art sorting technology installed at the new centre in Fangyuan, REMONDIS can now produce its own polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) pellets for the plastics-processing industry – products that are in high demand on the island. Taiwan’s textile industry stands out from other countries when it comes to recycled PET plastic – or rPET as it is often called. The sector has turned the spotlight on this recycled material and is now using it to make, for example, sports clothing.
A further highlight of this new plant is its automated real-time monitoring system for delivering data about materials, water, energy and chemicals – a system that will also be able to integrate AI in the future. At the same time, REMONDIS has entered into a partnership with the PET and fibre manufacturer LeaLea to ensure their plant operations are as efficient and sustainable as possible. The neighbouring production facilities will be sharing the steam generation and wastewater treatment systems.
In the future, this plant will process approx. 45,000 tonnes of household waste plastic every year. To give an idea of numbers: a total of around 125,000 tonnes of PET bottles were collected across Taiwan in 2023. Used for the first time by REMONDIS in Taiwan, the plant’s near infrared (NIR) sorting technology will not only increase the quality of the segregated materials but also reduce the amount of manual work required. According to REMONDIS in Taiwan: “The biggest change is certainly the extrusion technology that we now have that allows us to process PET, PE and PP.” Able to produce standardised pellets using the plastic from its own sorting operations, REMONDIS is now covering another part of the supply chain itself.
Taiwan: a true pioneer
Taiwan introduced the policy of extended producer responsibility (EPR) back in 1988. Since then, a total of 13 different categories of plastic must be collected, sorted and processed. The businesses placing the materials onto the market must pay a fee to a Recycling Fund to cover the volumes they are responsible for. The fund then distributes the money among the businesses operating along the supply chain, i.e. the firms collecting, sorting and recycling the plastics. And this system works. Just one example: 77% of the PET containers collected are processed into new products. The recycled materials are used in a variety of sectors such as electronics – a well-known example being Apple’s AirPods Max – as well as to make shoes and, as mentioned earlier, sports clothing.
With a large percentage of the population backing its efforts in this area, Taiwan’s government continues to systematically pursue the path it has taken. It is currently investing in refuse-derived fuel (RDF) as well as in generally overhauling its waste treatment plants. Biogas is also playing an increasingly important role across the country. It is not a surprise, therefore, that REMONDIS is already operating a pilot biogas plant in Taiwan for processing organic waste. It is also in the process of building an RDF power station close to its new sorting plant. Once everything has been dovetailed, the path will have been set for the plant to produce carbon-neutral rePellets using CO2-reduced fuel (RDF), green energy (PV) and bioenergy.
And REMONDIS will also be helping to further develop the recycling systems, which the Taiwanese government wishes to make ‘smart’. It certainly looks like Taiwan and REMONDIS are the perfect fit. At the end of the day, you must keep on innovating to be a pioneer.
A special feature of Taiwan’s circular economy: the collection trucks play music to let the residents know they are coming. Video
REMONDIS Taiwan
REMONDIS Taiwan has been offering its high-quality plastics recycling services since 1996. With a workforce of 130+ employees at five different business locations, REMONDIS Taiwan is one of the leading circular economy businesses.
Image credits: image 1, 2, 3: © REMONDIS; image 4: Adobe Stock: Negro Elkha
