Ashok Mohinani, Executive Director of Mohinani Group (R)
Mohinani Group, the parent company of Poly Tanks (Gh) Ltd, 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. PET is the primary material found in plastic 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. Mohinani Group will be sourcing used PET bottles locally (and eventually from neighboring countries) via alliances and through the Group’s own collection network.
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. It will also be available in the market for other preform producers to help meet their sustainable packaging goals.
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.
The Mohinani Group has outlined that the investment was in line with the company’s commitment to meet both the Group and Ghana’s sustainability goals. In addition, the project will add to the number of jobs that the Mohinani Group has already created in the Ghanaian market.
The group encourages stakeholders in the “sustainability and recycling” space to also engage with it in forming alliances and partnerships to further tackle issues surrounding waste in Ghana, including reviewing existing legislation on this important subject. With this pioneering project, the Mohinani Group founded in Accra in 1966, emphasizes the importance of Ghana to the Group.
“Plastic Waste management is a huge 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,” Management for the Group 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 on investing in a similar plant in Nigeria. The initiative is part of the Group’s commitment to increasing and enhancing sustainable packaging in Ghana in line with the other sustainability and CSR initiatives in the country.
