Mother Company of Poly Tank, Mohinani Group to open first bottle-bottle PET plant in Ghana
Parent company of Poly Tanks (Gh) Ltd, Mohinani Group, is set to invest over $16 million to open Ghana’s first bottle to bottle recycling plant to supply food grade rPET (recycled polyethylene terephthalate) of European standards.
According to the Group, the investment is in line with the company’s commitment to meet both the Group and Ghana’s sustainability goals and help address the plastic waste menace in the country.
Speaking at an event to launch the plant, Executive Director of the Mohinani Group, Ashok Mohinani encouraged stakeholders in the sustainability and recycling sector to also engage with it in forming alliances and partnerships to further tackle issues surrounding waste in Ghana,
“Plastic Waste management is a major topic all over Africa. As we cater to the plastics sector, it is a logical step for us to enter the plastics recycling industry. We want to close the loop for plastic packaging, and this is perfectly possible with bottle-to-bottle recycling. Especially in Ghana, where until now no closed-loop recycling exists, we are proud to be the first to do it,” he said.
“The opening of this state-of-the-art plastic recycling facility will make the Mohinani Group one of the largest recyclers in the country. It will also place the company among the most prominent in the sub region as plans are in place to invest in a similar plant in Nigeria,” he added.
The initiative is part of the Group’s commitments to increasing and enhancing sustainable packaging in Ghana in line with the other sustainability and CSR initiatives in the country.
PET is the primary material found in plastics beverage bottles. The plant will produce rPET by sourcing post-consumer PET bottles and these would be recycled into material that will then be used in producing new bottles.
The recycled food-safe rPET can be used to create high quality food grade packaging, produced as per global standards through the company’s own preform production lines.
The plant, which is expected to commence operations in late 2023 with full capacity reached in early 2024, will have a capacity to recycle 15,000 metric tonnes of plastic annually, with the overall group’s capacity increasing to 30,000 metric tonnes by late 2024.
Plastic pollution is a major environmental concern in Ghana, due to the severe threats it poses to both terrestrial and marine ecosystems. According to the UNDP, Ghana produces about 1.1 million tons of plastic waste annually with only 2% being recycled.
This indicates that most of the plastic waste generated ends up in the environment.
Over the years, Government has introduced many policies and interventions to help deal with the plastic menace in the country. The intended policies are aimed to either change the behavior of consumers or producers towards less plastic consumption and production.
However, these policies and programmes have not yet yielded the desired results. This many stakeholders have attributed to improper implementation and lack of enforcement by the regulatory authorities.
Delivering the keynote, Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Kwaku Afriyie, said the initiative compliments government’s efforts at addressing the challenge of plastic waste management in the country.
Source: Ghana Business
