Saturday, March 26, 2005

Morogoro Plastic will open a plastic grinding plant in the Tanzania town of Morogoro in April of 2005, according to Faustine Rwambali of the East African. The grinding plant will be followed by a network of 5 washing plants around Tanzania. 75% of the $2m (2bn Tsh) investment needed to build the system of plants has been provided by Barclays. The first three washing plants will be in Mwanza, Arusha, and Dar es Salaam, followed by a plant on the island of Zanzibar and one in the southern part of the country.

The East African, a weekly business paper published by the Aga Khan’s Nation Media Group, reports the grinding plant will have a daily capacity of 3 tons of plastic. This capacity will be upgraded to 10 tons per day once equipment ordered from Portugal arrives in June, reported IPPMedia, the news arm of East African beverage conglomerate IPP Holdings. Praful Ladwa, the director of Morogoro Plastic, claims Tanzania produces 1000 tons of plastic per day. Once the full network of plants is functioning, Ladwa hopes it will be able to handle more than 75% of that waste stream.

According to the East African, Tanzania has 15 to 20 plastics companies. Ladwa said the new plant system will be the “first of its kind in East and Central Africa.” Morogoro Plastic plans to expand its recycling operations into neighboring Kenya and Uganda by 2007. Ladwa asserted that the system would create at least 10,000 jobs in the region.