Circular Economy

Re>Pal Indonesia’s efforts in circularity

Global Initiatives | Feb 27, 2020

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Image by Jonathan Chng

Developing circular business models: Case Study of Re>Pal Indonesia’s contribution to reducing plastic waste.

Last year alone, Indonesia produced 300,000 tonnes of plastic waste . In order to tackle this problem, the Indonesian Government committed to being plastic pollution-free by 2040 . Indonesia’s commitment to plastic waste reduction will lead to new business models and innovative solutions to deal with the plastic waste which currently exists while also building new circular business models to ensure that all plastic created is able to be reused.

Re>Pal Indonesia, located in Pasuruan, East Java, is already one such circular solution and has been manufacturing since 2016. Re>Pal closes the plastic loop by transforming plastic
waste into industrial-grade pallets. Manufactured from 100% waste plastics, the Company’s pallet production in 2019 recovered 5,800,000kg of plastic waste that would have otherwise ended up in landfills or oceans. The Re>Pal plastic pallet has a lifespan that is easily 5-10 times that of wooden pallets, making them more cost effective over the pallet life. Designed for recyclability, Re>Pal’s pallets are renewable and do not need use of new raw materials, unlike traditional hardwood or virgin plastic pallets.

With the right technology, Re>Pal Indonesia believes that most plastics can be recycled. The Company typically uses HDPE, PP, and LDPE waste; and some of their common sources of plastic waste include milk bottles, shampoo bottles, agricultural plastic films, sheet plastic from construction, bottle caps and more.

In creating a circular economy, Re>Pal is not alone. Re>Pal is seeing increasing interest from leading Indonesian brands committed to play their part in producer responsibility. Re>Pal has noticed dramatic changes in how Indonesian companies manage their supply chain, often adopting zero-waste-to-landfill policies and sourcing for materials that can be renewed and recycled. To date, Re>Pal Indonesia has collaborated with companies such as Danone AQUA and DynaPack. The Company has also engaged many suppliers for testing adoptions of the Re>Pal pallet, further amplifying circularity.

The circular economy is gathering pace. Businesses, consumers and society at large have realised that in order to achieve a sustainable future, we must move away from the current linear “take-make-dispose” model to a circular one. This interest drives B2C packaging, production and consumption patterns, but also significantly shapes B2B supply chains. Through a business model that is circular at its core, businesses like Re>Pal are well-positioned to provide feasible solutions to plastic waste reduction in Indonesia and beyond.

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