Turning the tide on plastic waste in ASEAN

OPTOCE pilot projects in Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Cambodia have shown that cement kilns can safely co-process non-recyclable plastic waste at thermal substitution rates of up to 30 per cent, co-processing over 400,000tpa on an annualised basis. With the right policies and preprocessing investment, ASEAN’s cement sector has the scale and industrial base to treat significantly larger volumes, making co-processing a meaningful response to one of the world’s most pressing plastic waste crises.