Virtuous cycle

‘Uberizing’ plastic waste collection

Heng Hiap Industries receives waste plastic from 28,000 individual recyclers in the region. The company converts the material into a high-performance resin before selling it to clients that include top South Korean appliance manufacturers, and Japanese automotive companies. 
 
The demand for quality recycled plastic is so high that Heng Hiap Industries was struggling to keep pace. Previously, it had purchased waste plastic from informal collectors near the factory. However, this process was manual, complex, and involved pen and paper transactions, and in-person negotiation. 
 
Heng Hiap Industries wanted to leverage the possibilities offered by digital transformation in the waste sector to simplify and digitize this process, while seizing other opportunities to enable ‘smart’ recycling – thereby increasing the value of recycled plastic through the supply chain. 

Targeting eco-conscious consumers

Work on the project exceeded expectations, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, to such an extent that Heng Hiap Industries extended its collection infrastructure beyond informal collectors, grassroot recyclers, and kerbside scavengers, all the way to the household level. 
 
Kian Hoe Seah, founder and managing director, explains how the project sits within the long-term aims of the business. “Our aspiration is to enable an advanced plastic recycling industry in South East Asia, starting with Malaysia. Our smart recycling model is adapted to suit the fragmented informal industrial chain currently in place.” 

Rewards for recycling

“Keeping plastic out of the ground requires a technological solution involving the consolidation and streamlining of industry processes and incentives,” explains Keziah Quek, innovation lead at Capgemini’s Applied Innovation Exchange, who was involved in the project.

“However, the genius in Heng Hiap Industries’ strategy is that it recognizes the true driving force of a circular economy: making it simple for environmentally conscious consumers to choose pro-planet behaviors that align with their values, and to be rewarded for recycling.”

Throughout the collaboration, Capgemini applied design-based thinking, with a sharp focus on the factors that would make the project a success: leveraging ethical consumers to drive the demand for recycled plastics, making the solution attractive to both collectors and consumers, and helping top consumer brands meet their sustainability commitments.

Creating a circular loop

Through this project, Heng Hiap Industries and Capgemini are developing and strengthening a ‘circular’ model of plastic recycling in the region that rejects the traditional linear ‘take, make, dispose’ model of consumption. 
 
Partly, this is driven by increased pressure on companies from consumers to use more recycled plastic, as Kian explains: “Global brands are looking for high-quality recycled plastic with high standards of compliance, traceability, and transparency. More than 70 top brands, including Unilever and Nestlé, have made public pledges to use 25% of recycled content by 2025.”