Mowe $60M rPET plant to process 100,000 tonnes a year

By Grace Kim

$60 million and 100,000 tonnes a year define Polysmart Packaging Limited’s expanded rPET plant in Mowe, Ogun State, scheduled for commissioning on October 29, 2026. The company will commission phase one at its factory on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, describing the facility as Africa’s largest food-grade recycled polyethylene terephthalate plant.

Polysmart designed the facility to process up to 100,000 tonnes of used PET bottles yearly. At full capacity, it expects 60,000 tonnes of food-grade recycled material and 20,000 tonnes of other recycled plastics each year. The company says the site can handle the equivalent of about 6.5 billion bottles yearly.

What does the plant change for bottle collectors?

For thousands of collectors earning income from bottles along roadsides, drainage channels and waterways, the project could make recovered material more valuable. Polysmart projects about 1,000 direct jobs and more than 50,000 indirect jobs across collection, sorting, transportation, aggregation and processing. That demand could improve opportunities for small businesses supplying bottles to packaging manufacturers.

Polysmart operates 25 aggregation centres across eight states. Within two years, it plans to establish another 250 centres across Nigeria’s 36 states, widening the collection network that must feed Mowe. Until those centres and consistent deliveries of clean, recoverable bottles become operating facts, the plant’s full output remains vulnerable to feedstock gaps.

Polysmart Group Managing Director and CEO Wasiu Balogun said: “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.”

He said the investment showed that Nigerian businesses could develop large-scale recycling infrastructure. Balogun also said: “We are not only recycling plastics; we are restoring dignity to our environment and creating opportunity for our people.” He credited plastic collectors, employees, industry partners, financiers and host communities for the company’s growth.

Reliable collection, effective sorting, adequate transport and clean, recoverable bottles will determine whether the plant sustains production. Polysmart links the expected environmental gains partly to efficient collection and sustained participation by households, businesses and collectors. Discarded bottles accumulate in streets, drainage channels and landfills, contributing to flooding and river pollution; recycling returns some material to manufacturing.

Nigeria consumes an estimated 600,000 tonnes of virgin PET annually, according to Polysmart, creating potential demand for local recycled resin. Polysmart projects that Mowe could save Nigeria about $72 million yearly in foreign exchange by reducing virgin-resin imports. Local rPET could also help manufacturers reduce import dependence and meet evolving plastic-waste and Extended Producer Responsibility requirements.

European companies EREMA, SOREMA and TOMRA supply the plant’s processing and sorting technology. Polysmart says it designed its food-grade processes to meet applicable food-contact standards associated with the United States Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority. The company did not announce either authority’s approval of the plant.

Commissioning on October 29 marks a further step toward a domestic bottle-to-bottle recycling industry. For collectors, the practical test is sustained demand, because commissioning alone will not improve livelihoods if purchases of recovered bottles do not continue.

The market milestone comes at ramp-up: Polysmart must keep the plant supplied with clean bottles and demonstrate sustained demand for its food-grade rPET as manufacturers address evolving plastic-waste and Extended Producer Responsibility requirements. Until Mowe demonstrates both conditions, its 1,000 direct jobs, 50,000 indirect jobs, 6.5 billion-bottle throughput and $72 million annual foreign-exchange saving remain projections, not operating outcomes.