Sustainable Plastics - January/February 2023 - 23

global
ability readiness, making Malaysia
an ideal business partner for
the world, she concluded.
HHI at the forefront of
developments
The poster child for Malaysia's
progress towards circularity is
an end-to-end integrated plastics
recycling company called
HHI that was one of the exhibitors
at the Malaysian Pavilion
at the fair. HHI, short for Heng
Hiap Industries, specialises in
recovering and recycling plastic,
as well as paper, and other
materials. The company also
provides waste management
solutions to its customers.
HHI is committed to helping
reduce the amount of waste
going into landfills and reduce
the environmental impacts of
waste management, said CEO
Kian Hoe Seah, who founded
the company in 2002. He believes
that plastic is a resource,
not a problem.
" My journey in recycling
started at the young age of 10, "
he explained. " My father was a
truck driver, my mother was a
truck driver as well, and I helped
to separate the waste to be recycled
we collected, going from
household to household. "
Then, the system was highly
fragmented. Today, HHI has
integrated the value chain, developing
an internal industrial
standard shared by 28,000 informal
communities on plastic
waste collection to increase
the supply chain eff iciency and
quality consistency.
" It is the first 'C' - collect - in
our interesting 5C system, " said
Seah. " This means that while
the waste is making itself towards
us, it is being separated
in the way that we want it and
anything that cannot be separated
automatically is manually
separated; we separate homopolymer
and random; high
melt flow and low melt flow, all
by hand. By the time the material
reaches us, it is no longer
a mixed plastic but a feedstock
with a certain integrity. " Once
at the HHI facilities, near-infrared
separation technology is
used to further purify the material
streams.
The second 'C' in the system,
convert, covers HHI's compreKian
Hoe Seah
hensive range of solutions, from
sorting, crushing and washing
to mixing and extrusion; the
third, 'co-create' refers to the
company's ability to customise
according to special requirements
on color or MFI for a
wide range of products.
" Our fourth 'C' is champion:
our plug-and-play model allows
global brands and businesses
to quickly get into business and
produce extraordinary products
for their customers; the fifth is
consume, enabling consumers
to opt to buy plastic products
sustainably and be able to track
and trace the source of plastic by
using our traceability program. "
HHI can therefore supply
materials suitable for mediumto
high-level applications, if desired
customized according to
specification.
" We are working towards
mechanically recycled foodgrade
packaging for the United
States, " said Seah. " That is
not yet possible for the European
market. "
In fact, the company has
already passed the first two
steps of the total three for
food-contact approval for the
FDA and is hoping to hear in
June whether the third hurdle
has also been cleared.
Cleaning up the ocean
A major, ongoing challenge
for the company is addressing
the problem of marine litter:
preventing plastic waste from
entering the ocean in the first
place and then processing this
into a feedstock suitable to be
made into high-quality resins,
via chemical recycling.
An ISCC-certified company,
HHI currently collects up
to 60,000 tonnes of post-consumer
plastic waste per year in
Malaysia, 2,000 tonnes of which
are ocean-bound plastic.
" We distinguish between the
plastic that is recovered from
the ocean and what you can
call 'ocean avoided' plastics, or
plastics from coastal areas up
to 50 kilometers away from the
coast, which potentially may
enter the ocean. Plus, it has to
come from a mismanaged location:
an area that's not being
managed by any municipality or
government. Most of what we
collect consists of ocean avoided
plastics, " said Seah.
" We're talking to Ocean
Cleanup, and we also collect the
sunken plastic from the sea floor
with scuba divers. We're connecting
all the interest groups,
the NGOs together, to make that
impact together. And to reverse
this trend of ocean pollution. "
To that end, HHI collects
ocean plastics and produces
manufacturable materials,
on the way becoming the first
company in the world to receive
Ocean Bound Plastic OBP certification,
co-developed by NGO
Zero Plastic Oceans and Control
Union. Although obviously
we also certify for other standards
like UL or SGS, said Seah.
HHI's regular recycled resin,
sourced from Malaysian households,
is also getting the same
traceable certifications to show
that it's sourced and manufactured
responsibly, Seah said.
" So, for every single batch of
material that we sell, we provide
a report of where it was collected;
the control unit then checks
the authenticity of our report.
Literally every batch of material
that we sell comes with a 'birth
certificate', showing where it
was collected and how it was
collected, for full transparency.
Part of it is a digital link and part
of it is blockchain, as well. HHI
is the very first company in the
world to actually achieve this, "
Seah pointed out with pride.
In another first, the pyrolysis
oil produced is sent from
Malaysia to the Netherlands,
where Sabic processes it into
plastics. " It's the first time
they're using hydrocarbon
feedstock from Asia, and the
first time Sabic is using oceanbound,
ISCC+-certified pyrolysis
oil, " said Seah.
" Yes, the volumes are still
tiny, a mere drop in the ocean.
We are doing 2,000 tonnes a
year and because it's a batch
process - meaning we have to
stop-start-stop-start - we are
currently running at approximately
60-70% capacity. "
Recycling 2.0
In terms of circularity and actual
products, HHI can point to a
number of successes. Working
with Malaysian furniture company
Kian Group, HHI's oceanbound
recycled PP is today
used to commercially produce
a chair designed by Dutch designer
Danny Fang. " The Louvre
chair is sold to quick-service
restaurants across Malaysia, "
said Seah. " We piece together
the entire chain of custody using
technology that's related
to blockchain and QR code, to
tell the whole story. Customers
commit to returning the chair to
us at the end of life, so we can
ensure full circularity. "
In another project, the bags
used to package the fertilizer
used by local farmers are recycled,
mixed with ocean-bound
plastic and made into tables and
chairs for the estate school, he
said. Actually seeing the products
- tables and chairs for their
children at the school - acts as
an incentive for the farmers to
collect this packaging instead of
simply throwing it away.
" We started with plastics
recycling 1.0 but what HHI is
now doing is recycling 2.0., " said
Seah. Using modern digitalisation
technology - a new app,
blockchain capability created in
collaboration with Cap Gemini -
the company will be able to coordinate
the operators it works
with digitally.
" Basically, we are trying to
enable a bottom-up solution; f
In a developed country like Japan,
a top-down approach has
worked very well; but our system
of does not have the requisite
regulation and checks in
place to support that. "
He added: " Our eff orts are directed
at lessening ocean pollution
in Malaysia. It is an exciting
journey. There are so many
interpretations of sustainability
- some literal, some technical,
some operational, some strategic
- and this is how we are
doing our bit in this direction. "
January/February 2023
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Sustainable Plastics - January/February 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sustainable Plastics - January/February 2023
