The Thai chemicals company Indorama Ventures has pledged $1.5 billion of investment over the next five years for recycling. The company revealed its reasons behind the commitment on Wednesday, stating that consumers are becoming more aware of the environmental impact of single-use plastic and regulators are pushing for more recycling. The company’s primary business is the production of PET resin, a polymer used to manufacture plastic bottles and fibres used in products such as seat belts and tyres. In the last 12 months Indorama produced almost 5,000 kilotons of PET.

Indorama has 11 recycling sites globally, it has plants in Thailand, Mexico and France, the company hopes to improve its green credentials in order to align itself with new regulations being introduced by various governments and to meet expectations from their customers. Chief Executive Aloke Lohia explained that the investment would involve greenfield and brownfield mergers and acquisitions focusing on bottle-to-bottle recycling.

The European Commission announced a target in March, involving the incorporation of 25% recycling plastic in PET bottles by 2025, with a targeted 90% collection rate. Indorama plans to invest a further $500m by 2025 to help its clients achieve that target.

Aloke Lohia started Indorama in 1994 in Thailand with approximately 200 employees, the company has grown to employ 18,000 members of staff spanning 31 countries. The company has a plethora of universally recognised clients, such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestle. Indorama is working alongside brand owners and governments to enable more bottle-to-bottle recycling, Lohia said: “There is infrastructure in the world to recycle PET. The problem lies in the collection,”

Also, this month, Indorama bought Huntsman Corp’s chemical intermediates businesses in Australia, Indian and the US, expanding its midstream operations. The company still has $2.5b of uncommitted capital for new projects in its other businesses, including olefin, fibres and feedstocks.