…Facility to process 100,000 tonnes of used PET bottles annually, create jobs, save Nigeria $72m

Polysmart Packaging Limited, a Nigerian company, will on Thursday, October 29, commission Phase One of its expanded food-grade recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) plant in Mowe, Ogun State, in a major investment in the country’s plastic recycling industry and circular economy.

The $60 million facility, which the company describes as Africa’s largest of its kind, is designed to process post-consumer plastic bottles into high-quality recycled material suitable for food-contact applications.

At full capacity, it is expected to produce 60,000 tonnes of food-grade rPET annually, alongside 20,000 tonnes of other recycled plastics.

The commissioning marks a milestone in the company’s efforts to expand bottle-to-bottle recycling, recover discarded plastics and supply local manufacturers with recycled raw materials, reducing dependence on imported virgin plastic resin.

The ceremony, themed “Closing the Loop: Food-Grade rPET and Nigeria’s Circular Economy,” will hold at the company’s factory on KM 53, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Ileke Town, Mowe, Ogun State.

Government officials, traditional rulers, industry leaders, financial institutions, investors, development partners and media representatives are expected to attend.

According to Polysmart, the facility will process up to 100,000 tonnes of post-consumer PET bottles annually, equivalent to about 6.5 billion bottles. The company said the capacity would help divert significant volumes of plastic waste from streets, landfills, drainage channels and waterways.

Speaking ahead of the commissioning, the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Polysmart Group, Wasiu Balogun, said the investment demonstrated the capacity of Nigerian businesses to develop world-class recycling infrastructure.

“When we started this journey in 2013, many people told us that world-class, food-grade recycling could not be built in Nigeria. Today, with deep gratitude, we can say that it has been built here by Nigerians, for Nigeria and for Africa,” Balogun said.

He attributed the achievement to the contributions of plastic collectors, employees, industry partners, financiers and communities that had supported the company’s growth.

“We are not only recycling plastic; we are restoring dignity to our environment and creating opportunity for our people,” he added.

Polysmart said the expanded facility was expected to generate about 1,000 direct jobs and more than 50,000 indirect jobs across the recycling value chain, including plastic collection, aggregation, transportation and processing.

The company currently operates 25 aggregation centres across eight states and plans to establish another 250 across all 36 states within two years. The expansion is intended to improve the supply of used PET bottles to the plant while creating more livelihood opportunities for people involved in waste collection and recovery.

The investment is also expected to support import substitution. Nigeria consumes an estimated 600,000 tonnes of virgin PET annually, according to the company, a market that could provide opportunities for locally produced recycled material to replace some imported resin.

Polysmart projects that the facility could save the country about $72 million annually in foreign exchange by reducing the need for virgin-resin imports.

The plant incorporates processing and sorting systems supplied by European technology providers EREMA, SOREMA and TOMRA. According to the company, its food-grade recycling processes are designed to meet applicable food-contact standards associated with the United States Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority.

The facility is also expected to help manufacturers respond to Nigeria’s evolving plastic-waste regulations and Extended Producer Responsibility requirements. Polysmart said locally produced food-grade rPET would enable manufacturers to increase the recycled content of their packaging and strengthen domestic recycling capacity.

The investment comes amid growing concerns over plastic waste, which contributes to blocked drainage channels, flooding, pollution of rivers and other waterways, and environmental degradation. By returning used plastic bottles to the manufacturing cycle, bottle-to-bottle recycling offers a way to recover materials that might otherwise be discarded.

However, the effectiveness of such a system depends on efficient waste collection, participation by households and businesses, reliable aggregation networks and cooperation across the packaging value chain.

Polysmart said the expansion would strengthen these links by increasing demand for recovered PET bottles and extending the network through which waste collectors and other participants supply recyclable materials.