First Indonesian Plastic Project Registers with Verra’s Plastic Program

WASHINGTON, DC – 5 December 2022 | Danone-AQUA Indonesia has registered the first Indonesian plastic project with Verra’s Plastic Waste Reduction Program (Plastic Program). The Reciki: Valorization of Waste, Systematic Diversion from Landfill and Leakage project (Reciki Project) is a collaboration between Danone-AQUA Indonesia and PT. Reciki Solusi Indonesia (Reciki) and demonstrates how corporations can use Verra’s Plastic Program to measure the impact of their plastic waste collection efforts.

As the central component of Verra’s Plastic Program, the Plastic Standard is a global standard that allows for consistent accounting of various plastic collection and recycling activities. It drives investment into projects that increase the collection and/or recycling of plastic waste. The Plastic Program enables the independent auditing of projects to determine the extent to which they have reduced plastic waste. It includes a robust set of requirements that address social and environmental safeguards, and ensure rigor and transparency through stakeholder consultations and documented monitoring, among others.

Through this project, Danone-AQUA Indonesia invests in material recovery facilities (MRFs, or TPSTs in Indonesian) to divert plastic waste from landfills. Reciki is a private waste management company that works with local governments to collect municipal solid waste from local households and businesses for recycling at the MRFs. Multisector partnerships such as this one and active participation from plastic producers play a critical role for the government of Indonesia to reach its goal of reducing marine plastic waste by 70 percent by 2025.

In the Reciki Project, high-value materials are sorted, baled, and sold to large aggregators and/or directly to recyclers. The hard-to-recycle residual plastics are repurposed–they either will be transformed into construction material substitutes such as eco-planks and eco-beams or into fuels through Refuse-Derived Fuel.

The project currently includes two MRFs and will expand into additional facilities in Java and Bali over the next few years, focusing on areas where more than 80% of plastics are estimated to be mismanaged. The project is set to collect an average of 15,842 metric tons of plastic waste/year and will support community education on waste management.

Danone-AQUA Indonesia has developed this project as part of its #BijakBerplastik commitment to recover more plastic than it uses by 2025. In addition, Danone-AQUA has set circular packaging goals, including using 50% recycled content in its plastic bottles and making 100% of its plastic packaging reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025.

By investing in a collection project within Indonesia, the project aligns with the “regional match” recommendations in the Guidelines for Corporate Plastic Stewardship. The Guidelines contain best practices for the standardized accounting and reporting of plastic footprints and footprint mitigation methods.

Verra is a nonprofit organization that operates the world’s leading carbon crediting program, the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) Program, as well as other standards programs in environmental and social markets. Verra is committed to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve livelihoods, and protect natural resources by working with the private and public sectors. We support climate action and sustainable development with standards, tools, and programs that credibly, transparently, and robustly assess environmental and social impacts and enable funding for sustaining and scaling up projects that verifiably deliver these benefits.

Launched in February 2021, Verra’s Plastic Waste Reduction Program certifies the impacts of projects that reduce plastic pollution. Verra established the Plastic Program with the help of the 3R Initiative, a cross-sectoral collaboration involving organizations such as Danone that offer specific perspectives on the plastics value chain and waste management. The Plastic Program addresses the mismanagement of large amounts of plastic waste due to inadequate waste management infrastructure and substandard disposal practices.

Danone-AQUA is a pioneer of bottled drinking water and beverages in Indonesia which was founded in 1973. Danone-AQUA is part of the DANONE group of businesses, one of the largest food and beverage product manufacturers in the world. As an Indonesian born brand, for almost 50 years, Danone-AQUA has always committed to spread goodness to the community by providing healthy hydration and maintaining sustainability. This is in line with Danone’s vision, “One Planet, One Health”, where the company believes the health of people and planet are interconnected. As a manifestation of its vision and commitment to managing operations in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner, Danone-AQUA implements the “One Circular Planet” initiative which focuses on water circularity, packaging circularity and carbon circularity.

Danone-AQUA also initiated the first recycling program, “AQUA Peduli” in 1993 as the first step towards a more circular packaging model. Currently, we are able to collect 15,000 tons of plastic annually through 6 different Recycling Business Units in Indonesia. In 2018, Danone-AQUA launched the #BijakBerplastik movement which underlined three commitments to address the problem of plastic waste in Indonesia: Recycling Education to Consumers, Product Packaging Innovation, and Waste Collection Infrastructure Development. As a form of packaging innovation, AQUA has launched AQUA LIFE, the first drinking water bottle in Indonesia made of 100 percent recycled plastic.

Reciki is one of Indonesia’s leading privately-owned waste management companies, specializing in operating material recovery facilities, housing tailored machinery that receive, separate and prepare recyclable materials for future use, across Indonesia with the aim of achieving its zero waste to landfill vision. Reciki is committed to enable a sustainable recycling ecosystem in Indonesia as part of its holistically integrated solution to the environmental conundrum we are facing.

For more information, please contact: Danone Indonesia:Corporate Communications Department, Danone Indonesia, email: corporatecommunicationsID@danone.com.